L’Écho d’Alger
- Lieutenant Desmons returns to France
- The settlement of our debts
- The Government's policy of economies and reforms
This Algiers daily's front page for 30 September 1926 led with a vivid dispatch from Marseille. Lieutenant Desmons, the French ship's officer arrested and sentenced by the Turks, arrived a day late on an Italian liner. He stepped into a crowd of captains, dockers, fishermen and women who had left the bean-sacking machines, and the crush was so great that his parents struggled to get through to him. From Paris came two stories about Poincaré's financial recovery. The premier met deputy Adrien Dariac, whose subcommittee was examining the Washington and London war-debt agreements, and they discussed bringing the whole question before Parliament as soon as possible. Meanwhile, hundreds of deputies, senators and mayors of small provincial towns hit by the economy decrees met at the Palais d'Orsay. They promised not to obstruct the Government but urged it to suspend its judicial reform.
Translation
Lieutenant Desmons returns to France
The affair of the — Lieutenant Desmons returns to France
THE WHOLE FAMILY OF SEAFARERS GATHERS ON THE MARSEILLE QUAYS TO CHEER THE PRISONER OF THE TURKS
Marseille, 29 September (from our special correspondent). — The Italian liner Teresa Schiaffino, which was bringing Lieutenant Desmons back to France — arrested and sentenced by the Turks in the odious circumstances our readers know — was due to arrive in Marseille yesterday morning. It was not sighted until this morning at around 9 o'clock, and at 10:30 it appeared in the basins, coming to moor at the 2nd section of the docks.
What a crowd on the quay! — But not the official personages one is used to seeing there. No, this is no reception with great pomp and fanfare! It is a family celebration. The whole maritime family is there: deep-sea captains, registered seamen, general-service staff from on board; there are fishermen and shipping-company employees, burly dockers and quay workers black with dust and sweat; all of them have left their work for the moment — all of them, and the sack-filling women too, who have stopped the machine that bags the beans and who are moved to pity by the fate of the "lieutenant who remained a prisoner of the Turks."
THE ARRIVAL
Meanwhile, the Teresa Schiaffino has come alongside. Where, then, is Lieutenant Desmons? Every eye searches for him with curiosity. Here he is; he is young — twenty-seven, twenty-eight? One would not put him any older. He is dark-haired and smiling [?] but he seems moved. "He hoped his passage through Marseille would go unnoticed," one of his friends tells us.
The ladder is scarcely fixed before there is a rush! Papa Desmons, Mme Desmons and the two young women with them have all the trouble in the world making their way through the throng. Everyone wants to go aboard, everyone wants to see him, everyone wants to shake his hand. In the twinkling of an eye the lieutenant is besieged, pulled this way and that, surrounded, submerged. From the arms of his parents he falls into the arms of friends. The photographers are at work, and the newsreel cameramen too.
AN INTERVIEW WITH LIEUTENANT DESMONS
Once the first volley is over, we take advantage of a lull in the assault to
The settlement of our debts
ÉCHO ALGER
The settlement of our debts
M. Poincaré confers with M. Dariac on the question of the agreements
Paris, 29 September. — M. Poincaré, President of the Council, this morning received M. Adrien Dariac, deputy, chairman of the subcommittee charged by the Chamber's Finance Committee with studying the files on the Washington and London agreements, and discussed with him the question of war debts and the need to lay the whole problem before Parliament as soon as possible.
M. Dariac already has in his possession most of the documents relating to the London and Washington agreements [?], the rest of which will be handed to him shortly. Pursuing his study of the file, M. Dariac expects to be in a position to convene the members of the subcommittee before 15 October.
Opinions and comments
From L'AVENIR
With a debased franc, impossible to pay!
We are not political friends—
The Government's policy of economies and reforms
Postal cheques: 19, 25
Advertisements are also accepted at the Agence Havas
The Government's policy of economies and reforms
Meeting of parliamentarians on the recent decrees
Paris, 29 September. — At the invitation of the recently founded Association of Mayors for the defence of the interests of the small provincial towns affected by the recent decrees on economies, the parliamentarians of the departments concerned, 200 in number, met this afternoon at the Palais d'Orsay.
Before the session there were animated huddles. M. François Marsal declared that the parliamentarians' presence did not signify any mark of hostility towards the Government, for they had come only as observers.
TEXT OF THE RESOLUTION VOTED BY THE ASSEMBLY
Paris, 29 September. — Here is the text of the resolution voted by the meeting of parliamentarians and mayors held at 4 p.m. at the Palais d'Orsay:
"Three hundred deputies and senators, meeting without distinction of party at the call of the mayors of the arrondissement seats, or having given their adherence in writing, in complete agreement with the latter;
"Affirm their will not to hinder in any way the experiment undertaken by the Government in its effort at financial recovery;
"Declare themselves ready to ratify all measures capable of achieving serious and real budgetary economies, subject to all the adjustments necessary to bring about a broad administrative decentralization."
But they urgently ask the Government to suspend, for more thorough examination, the implementation of the judicial reform, whose principle is arousing legitimate protests throughout the country and which should be undertaken in a way more beneficial to litigants and to the Treasury.
[?] also decides, unanimously, to have this resolution presented to the President of the Council by its bureau, which MM. Marsal and de Jouvenel will join, tomorrow morning.
Tomorrow afternoon, the bureau of the Association and the parliamentarians will meet again to hear about the interview with the President of the Council. [?]
Context
Why Desmons was a "prisoner of the Turks": the Lotus collision
The paper takes for granted that readers know the "odious circumstances" of Desmons's arrest. They lay in the Lotus affair. On 2 August 1926 the French steamer Lotus collided with the Turkish steamer Bozkourt just north of Mytilene, and eight Turkish nationals aboard the Bozkourt drowned. Turkey arrested the Frenchman it held responsible, whom accounts of the case call Mr. Demons. The Turkish courts charged and convicted him over the damage and deaths. France protested that a crime committed on the high seas belonged to the courts of the flag state, which meant the French courts. This is the grievance behind the dispatch's image of a sailor held 'prisoner of the Turks'. His arrival in Marseille did not settle the dispute. France took the case to the Permanent Court of International Justice, which decided on 7 September 1927, by a bare majority, that no rule of international law reserved jurisdiction over such crimes to the flag state. The judgment gave its name to the 'Lotus principle'. Its application to jurisdiction over people on the high seas was later changed by the 1958 Convention on the High Seas, which gave that jurisdiction only to the flag state or the offender's own state.
What were the Washington and London debt agreements, and why did ratification drag?
Dariac's subcommittee was studying the two settlements of France's First World War debts. The Washington agreement, signed on 29 April 1926 and negotiated by Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon and Ambassador Henry Bérenger, greatly reduced what France owed the United States. It was still deeply unpopular in France: many French people thought Washington should cancel the debt, or at least tie payments to German reparations. The American side refused that link, although the settlement with Britain did include one. The debt dispute also bore directly on the currency. The United States had quietly blocked loans to France while the question stayed open, which put pressure on the franc. The L'Avenir headline printed under the Poincaré–Dariac report, 'With a debased franc, impossible to pay!', points to the same link between debt and currency. The meeting described in the paper was only an early step. Successive governments put off ratification, and the Chamber approved the Washington agreement only on 21 July 1929, by 300 votes to 292, before ratifying the Caillaux–Churchill agreement with Britain.
Why small-town mayors rallied against the economy decrees
The Palais d'Orsay meeting was a response to decree-laws that Poincaré's government issued under the law of 3 August 1926. The best known of these, dated 10 September 1926 and published in the Journal officiel of 13–14 September, abolished 106 of France's 286 sub-prefectures. Some rural departments lost two. The reform had been planned since a parliamentary commission chaired by Louis Marin in 1922, but it met resistance and was delayed. Poincaré, back in power in 1926 to put the public finances in order, pushed it through as an urgent budget saving. It also reached into justice and the gendarmerie, and courthouses and gendarmerie barracks, like the abandoned sub-prefecture buildings, were later reassigned or sold. The towns in question were the arrondissement seats whose mayors called this meeting, and the resolution singled out the judicial reform. At the same time, the parliamentarians were careful to say they would not obstruct the financial recovery itself. The dispatch gives two figures: 200 parliamentarians present, and 'three hundred' in the resolution, which also counted those who had joined in writing. According to the encyclopedia account, public reaction was later marked less by protest than by surprise or indifference. Some corrections were made in a few departments in the 1930s, and the Vichy regime later restored a number of sub-prefectures.
Original
Le retour en France du lieutenant Desmons
L'affaire du Le retour en France du lieutenant Desmons TOUTE LA FAMILLE DES GENS DE MER SE RÉUNIT SUR LES QUAIS DE MARSEILLE POUR ACCLAMER LE PRISONNIER DES TURCS Marseille, 29 septembre (de notre correspondant particulier). - Le paquebot italien «Térésa-Schiaffino», qui ramenait en France le lieutenant Desmons, arrêté et condamné par les Turcs dans les conditions odieuses que l'on sait, devait arriver à Marseille hier matin. Il n'était signalé que ce matin sur le coup de 9 heures, et, à 10 h. 30, il se profilait dans les bassins pour venir s'amarrer à la 2e section des docks. Quelle foule sur le quai! - Mais pas les personnages officiels qu'on y a coutume de voir. Non, ce n'est pas une réception à grand tralala! C'est une fête de famille. Toute la famille maritime est là: capitaines au long cours, inscrits maritimes, agents du service général à bord; il y a des pêcheurs et des employés de compagnies de navigation, des dockers robustes et des ouvriers des quais, noirs de poussière et de sueur; tous ont abandonné momentanément le travail, tous et aussi les ensacheuses, qui ont arrêté la machine à mettre en sac les haricots et qui s'apitoient sur le sort du «lieutenant demeuré prisonnier chez les Turcs.» L'ARRIVEE Cependant, le «Térésa-Schiaffino» a accosté. Où donc est le lieutenant Desmons? Tous les yeux le cherchent curieusement. Le voici; il est jeune, vingt-sept, vingt-huit ans? On ne lui donnerait pas davantage. Il est brun, et il est souriant [?] mais il paraît ému. «Il espérait que son passage à Marseille serait inaperçu,» nous dit un de ses amis. A peine l'échelle est-elle fixée, que c'est la ruée! Le papa Desmons, Mme Desmons et les deux jeunes filles qui les accompagnent ont toutes les peines du monde à se frayer un passage à travers cette cohue. Chacun veut monter à bord, chacun veut le voir, chacun veut lui serrer la main. En un clin d'œil, le lieutenant est assailli, tiré parci, tiré par-là, entouré, submergé. Des bras de ses parents, il retombe dans des bras amis. Les photographes opèrent, les cinématographistes aussi. UNE INTERVIEW DU LIEUTENANT DESMONS Le premier coup de feu passé, nous profitons d'une accalmie dans l'assaut à
Le règlement de nos dettes
ÉCHO ALGER Le règlement de nos dettes M. Poincaré s'entretient avec M. Dariac sur la question des accords Paris, 29 septembre. - M. Poincaré, président du Conseil, a reçu, ce matin, M. Adrien Dariac, député, président de la sous-commission chargée par la Commission des Finances de la Chambre d'étudier les dossiers des accords de Washington et de Londres, avec qui il s'est entretenu de la question des dettes de guerre et de la nécessité de saisir, dès que possible, le Parlement, de l'ensemble du problème. M. Dariac a, d'ores et déjà, en sa possession, la majeure partie des documents relatifs aux accords de Londres et de Washington [?] dont le complément lui sera remis incessamment. Poursuivant son étude du dossier, M. Dariac compte être en mesure de convoquer les membres de la sous-commission avant le 15 octobre. Opinions et commentaires De l'AVENIR Avec un franc avili, impossible de payer! Nous ne sommes pas des amis politi -
La politique d’économies et de réformes du Gouvernement
Chèques Postaux: 19, 25 Les annonces sont également reçues à l'Agence Havas La politique d'économies et de réformes du Gouvernement Réunion de parlementaires au sujet des récents décrets Paris, 29 septembre. - Sur convocation de l'Association des Maires récemment fondée pour la défense des intérêts des petites villes de province atteintes par les récents décrets relatifs aux économies, les parlementaires des départements intéressés, au nombre de 200, se sont réunis, cet après-midi, au Palais d'Orsay. Avant la séance, il y a eu des conciliabules animés. M. François Marsal a déclaré que la présence des parlementaires ne signifiait pas une marque d'hostilité envers le Gouvernement, car ils venaient seulement en observateurs. TEXTE DE L'ORDRE DU JOUR VOTE PAR L'ASSEMBLÉE Paris, 29 septembre. - Voici le texte de l'ordre du jour voté par la réunion des parlementaires et des maires qui s'est tenue, à 16 heures, au Palais d'Orsay: «Trois cents députés et sénateurs, réunis sans distinction de parti, à l'appel des maires des chefs-lieux d'arrondissement ou ayant donné leur adhésion par écrit, en complet accord avec ces derniers; «Affirment leur volonté de ne gêner en rien l'expérience tentée par le Gouvernement dans son effort de redressement financier; «Se déclarent disposés à ratifier toutes les mesures susceptibles de réaliser des économies budgétaires sérieuses et réelles, sous réserve de tous les ajustements nécessaires pour réaliser une large décentralisation administrative.» Mais demandent instamment au gouvernement de suspendre en vue d'un examen plus approfondi la mise en application de la réforme judiciaire dont le principe soulève dans tout le pays des protestations légitimes et qui doit être entreprise de façon plus profitable pour les justiciables et le Trésor. [?] décide également, à l'unanimité, de faire présenter cet ordre du jour au Président du Conseil par son bureau auquel se joindront MM. Marsal et de Jouvenel demain matin. Demain, après-midi, le bureau de l'Association et les parlementaires se réuniront de nouveau pour prendre connaissance de l'entrevue avec le Président du Conseil. [?]