Le Petit Matin
- The Cabinet's Situation
- In the Customs Service
- The Savings Bank
This October 2, 1926 front page mixed parliamentary gossip with brief official notices from Paris. A parliamentary report described how Joseph Caillaux, "the man from Mamers," had only to appear in the corridors of the Palais-Bourbon to bring some animation to the sparse, idle groups of deputies, and how their conversations returned to their usual course as soon as he left. Short Paris-datelined items reported that a decree due next day in the Journal officiel would abolish the regional customs directorates of La Rochelle and Montpellier, and that savings-bank deposits on October 1 exceeded withdrawals by 29 million. The customs item followed the closing line of a signed article by Raymond Colrat, a line referring to the grave situation in Europe, and the page also opened a notice on an international convention on maritime ports.
This reading covers only three short passages from a partially legible page. The Caillaux report is cut off at both ends, the customs item opens with the last line of an article by Raymond Colrat that is not otherwise transcribed, and the savings-bank item ends partway into an unrelated notice on maritime ports. Small print, clipped continuations and indistinct numerical tables elsewhere on the page were not transcribed. The savings-bank figure is given without a currency unit.
Translation
The Cabinet's Situation
[?] It took nothing more than M. Joseph Caillaux's appearance in the corridors of the Palais-Bourbon for a little animation to come and divert the thin knots of idle parliamentarians. Among them were a few former ministers — every deputy having been one, being one, or having the possibility of becoming one again. And as soon as the man from Mamers had disappeared, the conversations resumed their usual course. [?]
In the Customs Service
…believes, for in a situation as grave as that of Europe, the influence of men can do nothing against the force of events. Raymond COLRAT.
In the Customs Service
PARIS, October 1. — The two regional customs directorates abolished by a decree appearing tomorrow in the "Officiel" are those of La Rochelle and Montpellier. [?]
The Savings Bank
[?] PARIS, October 1. — Savings-bank deposits as of October 1 exceed withdrawals by 29 million.
The International Convention on Maritime Ports
PARIS, October 1. — The Government
Context
Why Caillaux's appearance in the Chamber's corridors set tongues wagging
The report treats Caillaux's mere presence at the Palais-Bourbon as a political event, and his recent record explains why. He had been France's finance minister twice in little more than a year: in Painlevé's cabinet from April 1925, and again from 23 June 1926 as finance minister and vice-premier in Briand's government. That ministry fell on 19 July 1926 after he asked the Chamber for authority to legislate by decree to restore the public finances, and the left, led by Herriot, opposed him. Poincaré then formed his fourth cabinet on 23 July with a broad "Union nationale" majority in the Chamber, built on the Radicals rallying to the old Bloc national. Caillaux was no longer a deputy but a senator for the Sarthe, elected in July 1925. The paper's nickname, "the man from Mamers," echoes the Mamers constituency in the Sarthe, which he had represented in the Chamber from 1898 to 1919. He was a former premier, a finance minister ousted only weeks earlier, and a Radical increasingly at odds with the left. That made him an obvious figure for deputies to watch while the cabinet's situation was being discussed. The surviving fragment shows only the stir he caused, not what the deputies actually said about the cabinet.
The customs cuts and Poincaré's decree-law economies
The notice that the La Rochelle and Montpellier regional customs directorates would be abolished "by decree" appeared in the middle of a wider drive for administrative economies. Poincaré had returned as premier in 1926 promising to put the public finances in order. Under article 1 of the law of 3 August 1926, his government issued decree-laws, among them the decree of 10 September 1926, which abolished 106 of France's 286 sub-prefectures. That reform grew out of a parliamentary commission chaired by Louis Marin in 1922, and it reorganised and simplified many other administrations as well. Closing regional customs offices fits the same pattern of pruning the state's regional apparatus, though the page does not say under which authority the customs decree was issued. If it rested on the same powers, there was an irony in it: in July, Caillaux had been refused authority of the same kind, and his request had brought down the Briand cabinet. The paper itself gives only the two cities and the publication date. It does not report the savings expected or what happened to the staff.
The financial climate behind the savings-bank figure
The paper reports only that deposits exceeded withdrawals by 29 million on 1 October. It does not state the currency or explain the result. The context is a French state that had spent 1925–26 struggling for financial credibility. When Caillaux was brought back as finance minister in April 1925, his task was to rescue a situation considered especially critical. The money supply was still growing fast, and the scandal over the Banque de France's false balance sheets had eroded public and investor confidence in French government debt. Poincaré's Union nationale cabinet took office in July 1926 with a large majority to carry out a deflationary economic programme. Against that background, a net inflow into savings banks was presumably welcome news for a government trying to restore confidence. The page, however, does not say why depositors behaved as they did in these particular weeks, and a single reported balance cannot show on its own that confidence had returned.
Original
La situation du Cabinet
[?] Il a suffi que M. Joseph Caillaux fît son apparition dans les couloirs du Palais-Bourbon pour qu'un peu d'animation vînt distraire les groupes clairsemés des parlementaires désœuvrés. Il y avait parmi eux quelques anciens ministres, tous les députés l'ayant été, l'étant ou ayant la possibilité de le redevenir. Et dès que l'homme de Mamers eut disparu, les conversations allèrent leur train. [?]
Dans les Douanes
croit, car dans une situation aussi grave que celle de l'Europe l'influence des hommes ne peut rien contre la force des événements. Raymond COLRAT. Dans les Douanes PARIS, 1 octobre. - Les deux directions régionales des douanes supprimées par décret paraissant demain à l ' «Officiel» sont celles de La Rochelle et de Montpellier. [?]
La Caisse d'Epargne
[?] PARIS, 1 octobre. - Les dépôts de la caisse d'épargne, à la date du 1er octobre sont en excédent de 29 millions sur les retraits. La Convention internationale des ports maritimes PARIS, 1 octobre. - Le Gouvernement