NEWS OF THE WEEK
THOUGH M. Ramadier's Government may hold together while the Three-Power talks continue its hold on life is obviously precarious in the extreme. The coal-strike is over, after costing France at least 700,000 tons at a time when the American coal-strike is reducing coal-imports, and the bank-clerks, by their return to work on Tuesday, have enabled the banks to reopen. But the Finance Minister, M. Tietgen, has declared that the wage-demands confronting the Govern- ment are equal to an average to per cent. increase in salary, or some 6o,000,000 francs, and since there is no increase of commodities to purchase the money would simply feed black-market transactions. M. Ramadier's problem is to all appearances insoluble without some external help. If he pegs wages the result will be strikes, which will lower production further and at the same time foment discontents which the Communists will turn to political advantage. If he permits wage increases (as he has in the case of the Association of State Employees) prices must inevitably rise too, and the average man's earnings be still unequal to meeting the average family's needs. If the Premier does fail to secure the vote of confidence he is asking for, the immediate political future is completely obscure. The Com- munists would like to re-enter the Government, but the M.R.P. is determined not to work with them. M. Gouin, the Socialist leader, is apparently ready to try his hand at forming a Government himself, but M.R.P. is equally opposed to a purely Socialist Cabinet. France's prospects are directly affected by the discussions of the Foreign Ministers. The presence of M. Molotov and his retinue causes a natural effervescence in Communist circles, and the divergence between the Russian Foreign Minister and the French must have repercussions in Paris. On the other hand, now that Mr. Bevin and M. Bidault have resolved to go vigorously ahead with their recon- struction plans, with or without Russia, the hope of salvation through the Marshall plan may still get M. Ramadier through his crisis.
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