Journal de Genève
- Polish Affairs
- A Turnabout
- Internal Pacification in Germany
The Journal de Genève's front page of 8 October 1926 carried an editorial signed W. M. that welcomed Marshal Piłsudski's decision to become Polish prime minister himself after the Sejm had twice brought down Kazimierz Bartel's cabinet. It argued that a man who rules a country in fact should rule it openly and under his own name. A second editorial, signed J. M. and headed "Revirement", went back to John Rochaix's speech of November 1924, in which he promised to spread Geneva's tax burden beyond the third of citizens who carried it and called the imbalance a moral as well as a fiscal error. From Berlin, a correspondent reported that political pacification was spreading in Germany. He quoted Stresemann on broad support for rapprochement and noted moves toward a grand coalition.
Translation
Polish Affairs
…the reality of power from parliament in order to give it to the executive, should have kept a grudge over it. The votes by which it has just overturned the Bartel ministry twice in a row are the sign that the conflict between the Marshal and the Diet persists. The Marshal had a choice between two solutions. He could have kept M. Bartel in office and dissolved parliament. He preferred to take the head of the government himself. He was right to do so. There is always a drawback, in politics, when appearance does not match reality. Since Marshal Pilsudski governs Poland, and since no one at the present moment could govern it without him, it is good that he should govern it openly and under his own name. The reasons for which he refused power this spring no longer exist. He …
A Turnabout
In the speech he delivered at Saint-Pierre on 24 November 1924, M. John Rochaix declared, in the name of the newly elected government, that the distribution of the tax burden, which until then had rested on one third of the citizens, had to be revised: "There is here not only a gap of a fiscal order," he said, "but also an error of a moral order." And he added that everyone must make an effort to pay his share of taxes. A few moments later, the president of the Conseil d'Etat stressed the fact that "the re-
Internal Pacification in Germany
Berlin, 6 October. (From our correspondent) The pacification of minds in Germany is spreading ever more widely and may be regarded as a sign of the times. Not only do "the great majority of Parliament, and the still greater majority of the nation, approve the policy of rapprochement," as M. Stresemann has said, but a similar movement is also tending to bring the parties together with a view to forming a new grand coalition. And now, on the other hand, the idea of the "Klassenkampf" is visibly-
Context
How the Sejm came to vote against the Bartel cabinet
The editorial signed W. M. read the successive votes against Kazimierz Bartel's cabinet as proof that the conflict between Piłsudski and the Sejm had outlasted the May 1926 coup. The first of these clashes is well documented. On 20 September 1926 the Christian Democratic Party brought a vote against two of Bartel's ministers, Antoni Sujkowski and Kazimierz Młodzianowski, accusing them of carrying out political purges in the state administration. The vote passed and forced Bartel and his cabinet to resign, but Piłsudski ordered President Mościcki to reappoint Bartel as prime minister. A vote aimed at two ministers thereby grew into an open conflict between parliament and the marshal. The Sejm had already lost ground before this: on 2 August 1926 it adopted the so-called August Novella, a constitutional amendment that significantly strengthened the role of the president. The editorial's remark about power taken from parliament and handed to the executive fits this shift.
Piłsudski as prime minister, Bartel as working head of government
W. M. argued that since Piłsudski governed Poland in fact, he should govern it openly under his own name. Piłsudski had withdrawn from active politics in 1923, when a government dominated by his opponents, in particular the National Democrats, held power, and he returned through the May Coup of 1926 to become the strongman of the Sanation government. He took office as prime minister on 2 October 1926 and held the post until 27 June 1928. The arrangement only partly matched the openness the editorial hoped for. Bartel stayed in the cabinet as deputy prime minister and minister of religious beliefs and public enlightenment, and he acted as de facto prime minister, because Piłsudski did not concern himself with the day-to-day functions of the cabinet. Piłsudski is considered Poland's de facto leader from 1926 to 1935 in his capacity as minister of military affairs.
John Rochaix and Geneva's newly elected government of 1924
The editorial signed J. M. builds its case on a speech John Rochaix gave at Saint-Pierre on 24 November 1924 in the name of Geneva's newly elected government. Rochaix came from the world of agriculture: he directed the agricultural school at Porrentruy from 1902 to 1904 and headed Geneva's cantonal agriculture service from 1905 to 1915. He was a Radical member of the National Council from 1917 to 1943 and sat in Geneva's Conseil d'Etat twice, from 1915 to 1918 and from 1924 to 1927, presiding over it in 1917 and 1925. The 1924 speech therefore came at the start of his second term in the cantonal government. The heading "Revirement" signals that the editorial sets his pledge to spread taxes beyond the third of citizens who bore them against a later change of course; the translated passage stops before the editorial says what that change was.
Carl Severing and the road to the 1928 grand coalition
The Berlin dispatch saw German parties drawing together toward a new grand coalition. The career of Carl Severing, who joined the Social Democratic Party in 1893, shows how that idea developed. Appointed Prussian interior minister in March 1920, Severing kept the Reichswehr out of violent conflicts, and the "Severing system" staffed the police and general administration with officials loyal to the republic. In 1926 he gave up the office for health reasons, but he worked hard for the formation of the grand coalition, which came about only in 1928, and he became Reich interior minister in it. The correspondent's expectation of a grand coalition was thus fulfilled, but two years after this dispatch.
Original
Les affaires de Pologne
réalité du pouvoir au parlement pour la donner au pouvoir exécutif, en gardât de la rancune. Les votes par lesquels il vient de renverser deux fois de suite le ministère Bartel sont le signe qu'entre le maréchal et la Diète le conflit subsiste. Le maréchal a eu le choix entre deux solutions. Il aurait pu maintenir M. Bartel en charge et dissoudre le parlement. Il a préféré prendre lui-même la tête du gouvernement. Il a bien fait. Il y a toujours un inconvénient, dans la politique, à ce que l'apparence ne soit pas conforme à la réalité. Puisque le maréchal Pilsudski gouverne la Pologne et que personne, en ce moment, ne pourrait la gouverner sans lui, il est bon qu'il la gouverne ouvertement et sous son propre nom. Les raisons pour lesquelles il a refusé le pouvoir ce printemps n'existent plus. Il ne
Revirement
Revirement Dans le discours qu'il prononça à SaintPierre le 24 novembre 1924, M. John Rochaix déclara, au nom du gouvernement nouvellement élu. que la répartition des charges fiscales, qui jusqu'alors reposaient sur un tiers des citoyens, devait être revisée: «Il n'y a pas là seulement, disait-il, une lacune d'ordre fiscal, mais bien aussi une erreur d'ordre moral». Et il ajoutait que chacun devait faire un effort pour payer sa quote-part d'impôts. Quelques instants plus tard, le président du Conseil d'Etat soulignait le fait que «la re -
La pacification intérieure en Allemagne
Berlin, 6 octobre. (De notre correspondant) La pacification des esprits prend en Allemagne une extension toujours plus grande et peut être considérée comme un signe des temps. Non seulement «la grande majorité du Parlement et celle, plus grande encore, de la nation approuvent la politique de rapprochement», a dit M. Stresemann, mais aussi un mouvement analogue tend à rapprocher les partis en vue de la nouvelle formation d'une grande coalition. Et voici, d'autre part, que l'idée du «Klassenkampf» se trouve visible -