LAVAL AS PUPPET

Evening Star, Issue 23678, 11 September 1940, Page 3

LAVAL AS PUPPET

PROFITEER IN THE GREAT WAR [FItOM OuK London CORItIiSPON DENT. ] August 1. There is not much mystery about who is the choice and master spirit, under German tutelage, of the puppet French Government. The hand may be the hand of Marshal Retain, the pathetic figurehead of the Ministry, but the voice is the voice of M. Laval. This pushful French statesman, of Moroccan extraction, who figured so prominently in the confused policy that gave Musso’lini a free hand in Abyssinia, is reported to intend the arrest of M. Daladier, M. Reynaud, and other French ex-Minis-terSj and their trial on a charge of having criminally engaged their country in war. (The report proved true.) M. Laval’s record in the last war is still vividly within the memory of French politicians. He had the astute business instinct to corner, at least so far as a considerable area of France was concerned, first agricultural implements, and then wood urgently needed for pit props. Thanks to his business foresight, in securing a partial monopoly in these vitally needed and scarce commodities; M. Laval emerged from the 1914-18 epic in the comfortable position of being more or less a millionaire. It is rather revolting to contemplate him as indicting compatriots, not for feathering their nests, but merely for atteiiipting to defend the country’s freedom.