The New French Cabinet M. Paul-Boncour, whose personality and outlook
arc more fully discussed on a later page, is generally regarded as the head of a stop-gap administration. That judgement is based not on the personnel of the new government, which, apart from the inevitable absence of M. Herriot, is not inferior to its predecessor (M. Daladier, at the War Ministry, can-be counted on to hold the ground M. Boncour himself .won from the General Staff), but to the dangers of the financial situation it has to face. There is a budget deficit of £120,000,000, and M. Paul-Boncour appears to have pledged himself against further cuts in salaries, as price, not of Socialist co-operation in the Cabinet—for he has not succeeded in getting that —but of Socialist support in the Chamber. By reaching out to the Right and laying hold of M. Cheron (Mr. Snowden's old adver- sary at the Hague) he has secured a Finance Minister of ability and experience, but even those qualities will not in themselves create new revenue. Quite apart from that something has to be done about America. The December instalment cannot be paid, for the Chamber has vetoed that, but no one in France is content simply to let matters drift. A month or so of makeshift seems inevitable, temporary financial provision being voted and the debt situation being explored 'through the ordinary diplomatic contacts. But the Boncour Cabinet does pretty definitely represent majority opinion, and it might hold on a gOcid deal longer than most people at present expect—parti- cularly if some compromise with America opened the way for M. Herriot's return to it.
