TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Waikato Times, Volume 119, Issue 19892, 22 May 1936, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

French Ministries Since the Armistice there have been thirty-seven Governments in France, so that each of them has had an average life of five months and ten days. If a comparison is made with the same period in Great Britain, the relative stability of British Governments will be found to be very much greater; for there have only been eight, with an average life of two years and two months each. Moreover the record length of any French Government under the Republic, which was held before the war by Waldeck-Rousseau, and has only been equalled since the war by reckoning M. Poincare’s two consecutive Governments between 1926 and 1929 as one, only amounts to three years, a record which has been easily beaten both by Mr Baldwin and Mr MacDonald since the war, to say nothing of Mr Lloyd George’s six-year Cabinet in the war and after, and several long-lived Governments of earlier date. However, this comparison is not really so much to the disadvantage of France as may at first appear. At least it does not prove the French to be fundamentally unstable in their political ppinions* It merely shows that their political machine tends to instability. For it must be remembered that, although the Constitution of the Republic nominally gives the President the power to dissolve the Chamber of Deputies on the advice of the Premier and with the assent of the Senate, that power has only once been used since the Republic has existed, and that occasion was as long ago as 1877. Britain's Position

“ It may be that those who urge that we should disentangle ourselves from Europe have something in mind rather different, or very different from what 1 have just described. They may be thinking of another situation when, owing to obligations elsewhere, our neighbours may become involved in conflict and may .call for help in a quarrel that is hot ours. That I believe to be a general apprehension. The people of this country are determined that that shall not happen, and that is the view of the Government. We agree with it entirely. Our obligations are world-wide obligations, are the obligations of the Covenant. We stand firm in support of them, but we do not add nor will we add one jot to those obligations except in the area already covered by the Locarno Treaty. Let us make our position on that absolutely clear. We accept no obligations beyond those shared by the League, except the obligations which devolve on us from Locarno.”—Mr Anthony Eden.