The new French Ministry which M. Doumergue has formed experienced
a stormy debate at their first meeting with the Chamber on Thursday. In the decisive division, however, they gained a majority of 161. The most important point in the Government statement was that no decision has yet been taken as to how the extraordinary expenditure on national defences will be met. Hotly pressed to be more explicit, M. Caillaux, the Finance Minister, admitted that the Govern- ment would not issue the loan of £52,000,000—the Perpetual Rente—for which the last Ministry had obtained a small majority. If a loan were issued at all, it would certainly be redeemable, and the service of amortization would not be based upon the great variety of new taxes proposed by the last Government, but upon a small number of taxes and upon taxes on acquired wealth. The Government refused to pledge themselves to postpone the admission of foreign loans to quotation on the Bourse, since this would be to tie their hands from the beginning of their existence, but they consented to give a general undertaking to consider the needs of France first.
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