THE

EUROPEAN affairs have been dominated by the political and economic crisis in France ever since the conclusion of the Locarno Agreement cleared the way for a return to national preoccupations. Were Aristide Briand a man of sterner fibre and more uncompromising antecedents, he might not now occupy for the eighth time the post of Premier. On the other hand, he might, once in power, become a dictator. France is crying for a strong government, but it is questionable whether she is prepared to achieve this by Fascist methods. Pride in his country's 'Grand Revolution' of 1789 still colors the political complex of the Frenchman. Whatever the aberrances of its politicians, the voters of that country are abundantly endowed with common-sense. France and Italy are not alike, and there is no precedent for the assumption that France, which has hitherto led in the great movements on the Continent, should now fall into step in Italy's wake.

Fascism, however, is a movement not to be disparaged. Many of its aspects are by no means novel. We have seen its tactics applied uncounted times in Latin America. Personal government,

whether by a Chinese tuchun, a Turkish ghazi, an Italian duce, or a Spanish director, is much alike. But Fascism as a popular philosophy is substantially a reaction against social disintegration, a forlorn-hope effort to restore the lapsing authority of government. Its champions employ direct action, as do the Bolsheviki; but to defend the existing social order, not to overthrow it. We shall return to this theme in next week's issue as dealing with the most significant aspect of current developments in Latin Europe.

It is hardly worth while to repeat the details of the various schemes for stabilizing the finances that have been proposed by successive ministers, because none of them seems likely at the present moment to be accepted. M. Loucheur, Big Business incarnate, proved even less popular as Minister of Finance than M. Caillaux, who at least aroused curiosity as a prestidigitator. Loucheur is rated an ambitious as well as a courageous man who was presumably better equipped for his post with every gift except public favor than is his present successor, Senator Paul Doumer.

Meanwhile trade is booming fever

ishly in France. No one can calculate a month ahead the cost of production. To-morrow's prices of raw materials, labor, transport, taxation, and credit defy guessing. Orders pour in from abroad and from within the country from the foreigner because the franc is abnormally cheap, and from the native because he fears that prices will mount to impossible heights and because he thinks it safer to convert his francs into goods while they will buy something than to wait until they are as valueless as waste paper.

Across the Channel progress toward better things is definite and heartening. Great Britain has rallied from her momentary discouragement last autumn, and finds upon taking stock of her resources and comparing the present with the past that her condition is not so desperate after all. As the Westminster Gazette says: 'At times, in surveying the situation, it is forgotten that war always brings unrest, since it inevitably brings change and distress; but the disturbance after the Napoleonic wars was very much worse than any of which we have evidence to-day. It was worse not only in extent but in its temper. The British worker to-day is making on the whole an intelligent criticism of his conditions. The small handful of extremists who make so disproportionate a noise tend to make people forget that solid body of sensible men and women who actually do the work.'

Mr. Baldwin's Government, which is really more Liberal-Centrist than traditional Conservative, pursues the even tenor of its way regardless of protests from dissentient extremists in its own Party. The Liberals are weakened by internal discord. Lloyd George and the Asquithians, despite repeated dramatic reconciliations, are still at loggerheads. This came to the surface lately in open differences over Lloyd

George's land policy. Of the Labor Party the London Outlook, which does not sympathize with its programme, says: 'Circumstances are against it. It has repudiated the Communists, but it is now bound to put up some sort of defense of Communists against the Government prosecutions. Logically the distinction is real, but the public is not always bound by strict logic. It is in favor of disarmament, but bound to protest against dockyard and similar service economies; here it can defend one position or the other, but not both - the logical contradiction is absolute. Similarly, it is theoretically in favor of Free Trade, but practically keen on reducing unemployment; and once again it is liable to contradict itself. Its head is with the Liberals, but its heart is more with the Tories, because it has not thought out its first principles. That way lies impotence.'

Ireland's agriculture is depressed, and her chief internal improvement harnessing the Shannon River to turbines and dynamos-is temporarily stopped by a labor dispute; but her political horizon is brightening. The recent settlement of the Ulster boundary is a long step forward. Stephen Gwynn, writing in the Observer, believes the retention of the present line no great disaster, and far more than counterbalanced by the financial relief that the British Government has granted the Free State as an inducement to amicable settlement.

"The boundary is not ideal; but the true objection is not to a special boundary, but to partition; and Ireland at large has come to regard that as an evil that must be lived down. Or, to put it better, we have learned to regard unity as a thing that must be worked for and lived for.' He believes that friction between Catholics and Protestants is growing less. Indeed, Catholic schools are receiving much more liberal treat

ment from the Ulster Government than they ever did under British rule from Dublin or London. Catholic Nationalists in the Northern Parliament are not only tolerated, but popular. Of their leader, Joseph Devlin, Mr. Gwynn says: 'All the Unionists I met spoke of him absolutely with affection. The truth is, they are nearly as proud of "Joe" as the Falls Road is. He is one of the outstanding personalities of Belfast, and they know it. But there is another side to it. Mr. Devlin complained to me that he found it hard to do what he conceived to be his best in the Northern Parliament. He liked them all too much. I never knew his form to be cramped by any such considerations at Westminster.'

For Germany the great event of December promises to be the evacuation of the first or northernmost of the three occupied zones and the restoration to German local officials of a share of the authority of which they have been deprived in the two zones that still remain under Allied control. The Berlin Cabinet crisis that followed the signing of the Locarno Pact is more apparent than real. Parties are jockeying for tactical advantages there as they are at Paris. The Social-Democrats disliked intensely some economic measures of the Luther Cabinet, but the Reichstag as a body and its leaders enjoy a prestige in Germany that Parliament and many Paris politicians seem to have sacrificed in France. Several French papers, even those of a Liberal complexion, refused to see in the Reichstag's ratification of the Locarno Treaty evidence of a real change of heart in Germany. They attributed that action entirely to economic motives. The country is in urgent need of liquid capital. There have been numerous business failures, and many others are supposed to be imminent. Much capital was made for the Treaty by petitions

Now that the ballots are counted, the recent elections in Czechoslovakia show that, disregarding ordinary party nomenclature, the three strongest political groups are, in order of strength, the Reformist Socialists, the Peasant Agrarians, and the militant Catholics, who incline toward Christian Socialism. Each of these groups can muster a million and a half ballots. The Communists come next with nearly a million voters, while the Irredentists, or dissenting Nationalists, who refuse to accept the new Republic as a permanent political fact, have shrunk to less than half a million members.

Poland's economic crisis shows no sign of betterment. According to the Warsaw correspondent of the London Economist, 'thirty per cent of the industrial population is unemployed . . . a percentage to be found nowhere in Western Europe. Even those who work are very often employed only five, four, or three days of the week.' The recent fall of the zloty entailed a run on the banks, whose liquid assets have shrunk with intimidating rapidity, enforcing a further restriction of credits. This situation has begun to react on public revenues, which are declining in sympathy with decreasing prosperity. As Poland has great natural resources and an industrious population, her ills are attributed to a shortage of money, and people are clamoring loudly for inflation.

Holland, whose Government has been a model of Conservative stability since the war, seems to be entering upon a period of ministerial unsettlement. Following the general elections last July, the Coalition Cabinet, which had been in office since 1918, was re