Journal de Genève
- Freedom of Trade
- Two Million in Savings
- Letter from Paris
The Journal de Genève's front page for 22 October 1926 dealt with trade, public finance and French politics. In an editorial signed W. M., the writer argued that the moment was right for a renewed push toward freer trade. He recalled that the hopes of the 1920 financial conference had run into political, financial and economic obstacles, and said Franco-German rapprochement had reduced the political ones. J. M. set out how Geneva could trim its 1927 budget, estimating that cuts to civil servants' salaries could save 900,000 francs and perhaps 1 million. The paper's Paris correspondent, held up in southern Brittany, reluctantly turned to the Radical Party congress just held at Bordeaux.
Translation
Freedom of Trade
…of trade, the International Chamber of Commerce, are coming to give this movement new strength. The moment is favorable. In 1920 the wishes of the financial conference ran up against obstacles of three kinds: political, financial and economic. The rapprochement between France and Germany has reduced, if not eliminated, the first of these. The European peoples…
Two Million in Savings
900,000 francs in spending reductions on the estimates of the 1927 budget can be achieved by lowering the salaries of civil servants (a closer examination allows us to say that it is even possible to reach, as with the plan of the former Council of State in 1923, the sum of 1 million). Other proposals, on which…
Letter from Paris
…force majeure keeps us a few days beyond the date we had set ourselves, political affairs seem of only middling interest. There is perhaps even something ridiculous in commenting on the debates of a Radical congress when one has before one's eyes the spectacle of the little inland sea strewn all over with rocks. But wherever one may be, one must, when the time comes, get back to work; and after all, we are no farther from Bordeaux here in southern Brittany than we would be in Paris — Bordeaux, where the congress was held about which we intend to say a few words here. The Radical and Radical-Socialist Party is a [?]
Context
From the 1920 financial conference to the 1927 World Economic Conference
W. M.'s editorial looks back to the 'financial conference' of 1920, whose wishes, he wrote, foundered on political, financial and economic obstacles. The reference most plausibly points to the Brussels Conference of 1920, whose distinctive format, with delegates not formally representing their governments, was later mirrored by the World Economic Conference that the League of Nations convened in Geneva. That conference had first been suggested in 1925 by France's Louis Loucheur and became the first international economic conference formally sponsored by the League; it met from 4 to 23 May 1927 with representatives of 46 member countries. It came after the Dawes Plan had temporarily eased the problem of German reparations, which is the setting for the editorial's claim that Franco-German rapprochement had reduced, if not eliminated, the political obstacles. The delegates in 1927 went on to declare unanimously that financial reconstruction was the basis of economic reconstruction, a view consistent with the editorial's treatment of finance as a distinct obstacle alongside politics and economics.
Where the Radicals stood when they met at Bordeaux
The Paris correspondent turns to the Radical and Radical-Socialist congress at Bordeaux at a delicate moment for the party. The Cartel des gauches, the alliance of Radicals and Socialists that had won the 1924 elections under Édouard Herriot's leadership, broke up in 1926, with the Socialist SFIO passing into opposition. Raymond Poincaré then formed a government composed of the National Bloc parties plus the Radical-Socialists, and the monetary crisis came to an end. In the autumn of 1926 the Radicals therefore sat in a cabinet alongside the right they had beaten two years earlier, while their former Socialist partners opposed it. The question of which side the party belonged on remained open: at the 1928 legislative elections, which the right won, the Radical-Socialists again presented themselves with the left.
A party splitting, and its president from the south-west
The congress also met in a year when the party itself was dividing. In 1926 the Radicals' right wing split off to form the Unionist, or National, Radicals. The party's president that year was Maurice Sarraut, who had been born in Bordeaux in 1869. The French Senate's biographical entry describes him as the brain of the Sarraut team and, for a quarter of a century, the real political master of south-western France, a position resting on his role at La Dépêche de Toulouse, the great Radical daily of the region. Bordeaux, where the congress gathered, was thus the party president's birthplace and a city of the south-west, the region he dominated politically.
Geneva's budget debate and the shape of its government
J. M.'s article concerns the budget estimates for 1927 and measures the proposed salary cuts against a 1923 plan of 'the former Council of State'. The Conseil d'État was the cantonal executive to which the Restoration of 1814 had made the City of Geneva directly subordinate, ending its autonomy. In 1926 the urban area was still divided among separate communes: Geneva, Eaux-Vives, Plainpalais and Petit-Saconnex. Voters rejected a first proposal to merge them in 1926 and, four years later, on 18 May 1930, approved the creation of 'Greater Geneva', after which tasks were divided between the City and the canton. The calls for economies in this article thus came in the same years in which Genevans were arguing over how their public administration should be organized.
Original
La liberté du commerce
du commerce la Chambre de commerce internationale, viennent donner à ce mouvement une force nouvelle. L'heure est favorable. Les vœux de la conférence financière se sont heurtés, en 1920, à des obstacles de trois ordres: politique, financier, économique. Le rapprochement entre la France et l'Allemagne a réduit, sinon éliminé les premiers. Les peuples européens
Deux millions d'économies
Deux millions d'économies 900. 000 francs de réductions de dépenses sur les prévisions du budget de 1927 sont réalisables par la diminution des traitements des fonctionnaires (un examen plus approfondi permet de dire qu'on peut même atteindre, comme avec le projet de l'ancien Conseil d'Etat en 1923, la somme de 1 million). D'autres propositions, sur lesquelles
Lettre de Paris
majeure nous retient quelques jours au delà du terme que nous nous étions fixé, les affaires politiques semblent d'un médiocre intérêt. Il y a même quelque ridicule peut-être à commenter les discussions d'un congrès radical quand on a sous les yeux le spectacle de la petite mer intérieure toute parsemée de rochers. Mais, où qu'on soit, il faut bien, le moment venu, se remettre à la besogne et, après tout, nous ne sommes pas plus loin en Bretagne méridionale que nous ne le serions à Paris de Bordeaux, où s'est tenu le congrès dont nous avons l'intention de dire ici quelques mots. Le parti radical et radical-socialiste est une [?]