Le Petit Matin
- A Question Mark
- At the Cabinet Council
- M. Steeg in Marrakech
This front page of 27 October 1926 set the mood before Parliament reconvened. In a signed column, Raymond Colrat predicted a quiet return. He argued that deputies were keeping silent so that Poincaré's ministry, not they, would bear the unpopularity of harsh measures, and he passed on rumours of more reforms beyond court reorganisation and limits on restaurant menus, under the refrain 'the pound falls and the cost of living rises'. A report on the cabinet council described the early release of conscripts from the 29th to help with the sowing, and Agriculture Minister Queuille's account of export bans. A dispatch from Marrakech described Resident-General Steeg's grand entry, a reception in the Sultan's Throne Room with wedding gifts for the princes, and a telegram about labour unrest in Tangier.
Translation
A Question Mark
The reopening of Parliament will be very calm, if one is to judge by the attitude of the deputies already in Paris. Faced with the gravity of the situation, confronted with the penance that is now beginning, and anticipating the political movements in the street that may well follow the constant rise in the cost of living, the members of Parliament are keeping quietly to themselves. They have little wish to take responsibility for a state of affairs they helped to create, and they are eager to leave to the Ministry in office the unpopularity that will inevitably attach to the severe measures that will be required. For, if well-informed people are to be believed, M. Poincaré is said to have other reforms in his bag besides the reorganisation of the courts and the limitation of menus. The pound is falling and the cost of living is rising! Such is the constant refrain one hears everywhere.
Raymond COLRAT.
At the Cabinet Council
PARIS, 26 October. – The Ministers met this morning at 9:30 in Cabinet Council at the Ministry of Finance under the chairmanship of M. Poincaré. The Council first dealt with current business. M. Painlevé, Minister of War, obtained approval for the decisions taken by the last Council of Ministers concerning the early discharge of the class due for release. This release, carried out in order to help with the sowing, will begin on the 29th of this month; the same will apply to the Ministry of the Navy. M. Queuille, Minister of Agriculture, gives an account of the measures taken to prohibit exports.
M. Steeg in Marrakech
MARRAKECH, 26 October. – M. Steeg arrived at 3 p.m. He was received at the entrance to the city by the authorities. The avenues and squares of the new town and the lanes of the Medina had been decorated. It was a grand entry. Immediately afterwards, M. Steeg went to the Sultan's Palace to greet Moulay Youssef. A reception took place in the Throne Room, during which M. Steeg offered his wedding wishes to the Sherifian princes, to whom he presented important gifts, and informed the Sultan that the Mendoub of Tangier had telegraphed him that he cannot leave the city because of the labour unrest. Tomorrow the festivities will continue with a dinner given by the Sultan in honour of M. Steeg.
Context
Why Steeg was Resident-General in Morocco in October 1926
Théodore Steeg was a French politician who, in the 1920s, ran the colonial administration first of Algeria and then of Morocco. On 11 October 1925 he replaced Hubert Lyautey as resident-general, with a mandate to restore peace and to move Morocco from military to civilian government. The Rif leader Abd el-Krim surrendered to Pétain on 26 May 1926 and was deported to Réunion, where he was held until 1947. The Marrakech entry that the paper reports took place five months after that surrender, when Steeg was carrying out his civilian programme. Steeg also favoured bringing more French settlers into the country: in his first three years he brought in almost as many colonists as his predecessor had in thirteen.
What the protectorate left to Sultan Moulay Youssef
Moulay Youssef inherited the throne from Sultan Abd al-Hafid, who abdicated after the 1912 Treaty of Fez made Morocco a French protectorate. Legally, the treaty gave France legislative power as well as control of military defence, foreign policy and jurisdiction, while the Moroccan government exercised authority only in Moroccan or Islamic affairs. Youssef had also moved the court from Fez to Rabat for his own safety, so the Marrakech palace where the reception took place was not his usual seat. Within this framework the ceremonies the paper describes — the Resident-General calling first at the palace, the reception in the Throne Room, the gifts to the princes, the dinner offered by the Sultan — show the courtly standing left to the dynasty, while the powers of state lay with France.
The grand welcome and Steeg's actual relations with the dynasty
Unlike Lyautey, Steeg spent little time with the Sultan and other members of the Moroccan elite. The grand entry and Throne Room reception reported from Marrakech are therefore the formal, public side of a relationship that was otherwise distant. The occasion also fell about a year before a turning point for the dynasty. Moulay Youssef's reign came to an abrupt end when he died suddenly of uremia in 1927, and Steeg selected Sidi Mohammed Ben Youssef as the new Sultan. His choice may have reflected a desire for an inexperienced young ruler. The paper names the recipients of Steeg's wedding wishes only as the 'Sherifian princes' and does not say which prince was marrying.
Henri Queuille, the minister who reported on the export bans
Henri Queuille, whom the cabinet report shows explaining the measures taken to prohibit exports, was a country doctor who returned to Neuvic as a general practitioner and went into local politics for the Radical-Socialist Party. He was first appointed Minister for Agriculture in 1924 and held the post in numerous governments through the 1920s and 1930s. After the Second World War he was Prime Minister three times. In this report his statement comes just after Painlevé's early release of conscripts to help with the sowing, so the two items the report describes both concerned the farming economy.
Original
UN POINT D'INTERROGATION
La rentrée sera très calme, si l'on en juge par l'attitude des députés déjà présents à Paris. Devant la gravité de la situation, en face de la pénitence qui commence, en prévision des mouvements politiques de la rue qui pourraient bien suivre l'augmentation constante du prix de la vie, les parlementaires se recueillent, peu soucieux de prendre la responsabilité d'un état de choses qu'ils ont contribué à créer et désireux de laisser au Ministère en place l'impopularité qui fatalement s'attachera aux mesures sévères qui s'imposeront. Car s'il faut en croire les gens renseignés, M. Poincaré aurait d'autres réformes dans son sac que la réorganisation judiciaire et la limitation des menus. La livre baisse et la vie monte! Tel est le refrain continuel que l'on entend partout.
Au Conseil de Cabinet
PARIS, 26 octobre. - Les Ministres se sont réunis ce matin à 9 h. 30 en Conseil de Cabinet au Ministère des Finances sous la présidence de M. Poincaré. Le Conseil tout d'abord procéda à l'expédition des affaires courantes. M. Painlevé, ministre de la guerre, fit approuver les décisions prises par le dernier Conseil des Ministres touchant le renvoi anticipé de la classe libérable. Cette libération, effectuée dans le but de favoriser les semailles, commencera le 29 courant; il en sera de même pour le Ministère de la Marine. M. Queuille, ministre de l'Agriculture, fait un exposé des mesures prises pour interdire l'exportation.
M. STEEG A MARRAKECH
MARRAKECH, 26 octobre. - M. Steeg est arrivé à 15 heures. Il fut reçu à l'entrée de la vile par les autorités. Les avenues, les places de la ville nouvelle et des ruelles de la Medina avaient été décorées. Ce fut une entrée grandiose. Aussitôt après, M. Steeg se rendit au Palais du Sultan saluer Moulay Youssef. Une réception eut lieu dans la Salle du Trône au cours de laquelle M. Steeg a présenté ses vœux de mariage aux princes chérifiens auxquels il remit d'importants cadeaux et fit part au Sultan que le Mendoub de Tanger lui télégraphia qu'il ne peut pas quitter la ville à cause de l'agitation ouvrière. Demain, les fêtes continueront par un diner offert par le Sultan à M. Steeg.