FRENCH POLITICAL CRISIS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 176, 4 November 1910, Page 5

FRENCH POLITICAL CRISIS

RESIGNATION OF THE BRIAND CABINETPREMIER RETAINS OFFICE. By Cable—Press Association—Copyright. Paris, Xorember ± The Briand Cabinet has resigned, M. Briand, at a Cabinet meeting, stated that in view of recent personal and political incidents it was best not to proceed with a partial reconstruction of the Ministry. He was anxious to leave the President entire freedom, and therefore resigned, but subsequently consented to form a new Cabinet. SAFEGUARD AGAINST ANARCHY. JL BRIAXD'S PRESTIGE. Received 3, 11 p.m. London, November 3.

Renter's correspondent at Paris reports that M. Briand emerged from the strike and the strike debate with enhanced prestige, bat the next task, that of devising measures to safeguard the country from anarchy, requires a homogeneous Government. The recent troubles were the results of the re-group'rag of parties. In Many European countries a contest between reactionary and Tevolu- J tionary forces seems to be approaching. France is the only country where the j danger to which this contest may ex-| expose Liberal institutions seems to be clearly recognised. M. Clemeneeau, whose unexpected fall in July of last year was the event of the French political year,| labored under the disadvantages inseparable from a combative and dictatorial temperament. His long record of political pugnacity had, moreover, so established his reputation as a fighter that, on his lips, conciliatorv utterances sounded almost insincere. M. Briand, his succes--1 sor, is a younger and less aggressive, though not less progressive, man. Like M. Clemeneeau, he began his political career in the revolutionary camp, but whereas Clemeneeau was Maire- of Montmarte during the Commune, and adopted, perhaps unconsciously, the principle vae vktis as a eorollary to his political creed, M. Briand passed through the milder school of. parliamentary socialism and emerged into public view only after laving learned by personal experience the insufficiency of socialism as a panacea for modern social evils. His reputation as a statesman was made by his handling of the Bill separating the churches from the State in France. His conduct was in-

spired by the principle that freedom of thought involves freedom of religious thoujht and al=o of religious practice, within the limits of the safety of the Common State; and he demonstrated his conviction that no solution of a controverted question is worthy to be called liberal or can be permanent unless it has due regard to the just claims of those against whom it mav be in appearance directed. The Vatican failed to comprehend and to take advantage of M. Briand's Liberalism. It preferred to sacrifice the interests of the Catholic religion in France to a policy of militant ecclesiastical rancour. But the mistakes of the Vatican do not detract from the essentially liberal quality of M. Briand's political faith. Of all statesmen in Europe, he is at present best worth watching as the pioneer of the only healthy tendencv in modern states—the" tendency to combine civil, religious and economic liberty with the discipline indispensable in any body politic; and to insist upon the truth, so easilv forgotten, that the liberties progressively won since the French Revolution are not intangible acquisitions, but need constantly to be de-

fended against the fanaticai partisans of an obsolete past and the fanatical prophets of a Utopian future.