Journal de Genève
- The Pan-European Congress
- The Grimm Candidacy
- Letter from Belgium
The Journal de Genève's front page of 7 October 1926 led with a signed editorial on the Pan-European Congress in Vienna. The writer welcomed the movement's economic core — Europe uniting against American competition and lowering both tariff and 'moral' barriers in what he called a renewed offensive for free trade — but argued that it was a mistake to shut out Britain, Europe's strongest industrial power, and to give an economic idea the political form of separating continents. A heading on Robert Grimm's candidacy also appears on the page, though the passage read under it continues the Pan-European argument. A Belgian correspondent described a feverish campaign before the 10 October communal elections, which he said had features that raised them above purely local contests.
Translation
The Pan-European Congress
[?] The peoples of Europe are beginning to realize that their economic fragmentation is deadly. Facing the United States, they feel the need to unite closely in order to fight, not on the battlefield, but on the world market. A profoundly sound idea. But how will Europe fight American competition if it begins by casting out from its midst England, which is its most powerful industrial unit? One need only analyze the situation with some care to discover the error in the reasoning. Pan-Europeanism is, at bottom, an economic sermon. It is a return to the offensive, in a new form, of free -
The Grimm Candidacy
trade. For our part, we associate ourselves with it wholeheartedly. There is no salvation, for Europe and for the world, except in a lowering, not abrupt but radical, of customs barriers — and of moral ones, which comes to the same thing. The miscalculation was to give this economic reasoning a political cast. For just as surely as the need to back out of the road of protectionism has been demonstrated, the need to carve up the world once again into new subdivisions is doubtful. From the economic point of view, Pan-Europeanism aims to unite peoples, and we applaud it. From the political point of view, it aims to separate the continents — and we do not
Letter from Belgium
The electoral activity that has been under way for weeks throughout the country ahead of the forthcoming renewal of the communal councils is growing feverish as the date of 10 October, set for this popular consultation, draws near. Although these elections are dominated above all by concerns of a local character, made more pressing by the selfishness of private interests and the antagonism of parties or personalities, they nonetheless present certain particular features that singularly heighten their importance. First of all, an examination of the candidacies put forward seems to show that the experiment attempted by
Context
Coudenhove-Kalergi's Pan-Europe and the exclusion of Britain
The movement the editorial weighs had been launched in 1923 by Count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, and its first congress opened in Vienna on the Sunday before the Jewish Telegraphic Agency's report of 5 October 1926. According to that report, the idea advocated at the congress was a United States of Europe excepting England and Soviet Russia — exactly the exclusion the Journal de Genève's writer attacks when he asks how Europe could meet American competition after casting out its most powerful industrial unit. The same dispatch noted that the French minister in Vienna, De Baumarchais, had been instructed to represent France officially, making France the only great power so represented; at least one government, France's, therefore treated the congress as more than a purely private gathering. The editorial's own position — endorsing a radical but gradual lowering of tariffs as a revival of free trade while rejecting a political bloc that would separate continents — is the paper's argument, distinct from what the congress itself resolved.
Why Robert Grimm's bid for the National Council chair was contested
Robert Grimm, a leading figure of the Swiss Socialist Party, sat in the National Council for Zurich from 1911 to 1919 and for Bern from 1920. The Historical Dictionary of Switzerland records that he was the chamber's vice-president in 1925–1926, failed to win the presidency in 1926, and became president only in 1946. The shadow over his candidacy was 1918: Grimm founded and chaired the Olten Committee, drafted the call for the general strike and led it. The national strike began on 12 November and was called off on 14 November 1918, an ending that, as Swissinfo puts it, looked like a victory for the hard bourgeois line; Grimm was then sentenced by a military tribunal to six months in prison. For years, the dictionary notes, the bourgeois parties saw in him only the revolutionary and the antimilitarist. The page's heading on 'the Grimm candidacy' belongs to the 1926 debate over whether such a man could preside over the National Council.
Belgium's communal elections of 10 October 1926
The Belgian letter concerns the municipal elections held across the country on 10 October 1926. They came at a moment of national political realignment: the government led by Prosper Poullet fell on 8 May, and on 20 May Henri Jaspar formed a government of national unity. The communal vote thus took place less than five months after that cabinet was assembled, and was held in every commune at once. The correspondent concedes that local concerns, private interests and personal rivalries dominate the campaign, yet insists that certain features give it a wider importance, beginning with an 'experiment' he reads in the lists of candidates.
Original
Le Congrès paneuropéen
[?] Les peuples d'Europe commencent à se rendre compte que leur morcellement économique est mortel. En face des Etats-Unis, ils éprouvent le besoin de s'unir étroitement pour lutter non pas sur les champs de bataille, mais sur le marché mondial. Idée profondément juste. Mais comment l'Europe luttera-t-elle contre la concurrence américaine si elle débute en rejetant de son sein l'Angleterre, qui est son unité industrielle la plus puissante? Il suffit d'analyser avec quelque attention la situation pour découvrir l'erreur du raisonnement. Le paneuropéanisme est au fond une prédication économique. C'est un retour offensif, sous une forme nouvelle, du libre -
La candidature Grimm
échange. Nous nous y associons, pour notre part, de tout cœur. Il n'y a de salut, pour l'Europe et pour le monde, que dans un abaissement non pas brusque mais radical des barrières douanières - et morales, ce qui revient au même. La faute de calcul a été de donner à ce raisonnement économique un aspect politique. Car autant la nécessité de faire machine-arrière sur la voie du protectionnisme est démontrée, autant celle de morceler le monde derechef par de nouvelles subdivisions est douteuse. Au point de vue économique, le paneuropéanisme vise à unir les peuples, et nous y applaudissons. Au point de vue politique, il vise à séparer les continents - et nous ne
Lettre de Belgique
L'activité électorale qui s'exerce depuis des semaines dans tout le pays en vue du prochain renouvellement des conseils communaux s'enfièvre à mesure que l'on s'approche de la date du 10 octobre, fixée pour cette consultation populaire. Bien que ces élections soient surtout dominées par des préoccupations de caractère local, que rendent plus pressantes l'égoïsme d'intérêts privés et l'antagonisme des partis ou des individualités, elles offrent pourtant certaines particularités qui en accentuent singulièrement l'importance. Tout d'abord, l'examen des candidatures présentées semble démontrer que l'expérience tentée par