The textile manufacturers offered to pledge a large part of
their credit as 'security for a loan of teii milliard francs (about £77,000,000) in order to enable the Govern.: ment to stabilize the franc. The Government has been considering the proposal seriously, but there were from the first obvious objections. One was that no Govern- ment can Well make an arrangement with a single indus- try, particularly when that industry has something to gain by the scheme ; another was that other industries immediately expressed doubt and jealousy. The textile industries, as the Times correspondent points out, import all their raw materials from abroad and they pay in sterling or dollars, whereas the iron and steel and similar industries get all their raw materials in France. Many of the most important Chambers of Commerce gave .a general support to the • textile ,seheme, but the: General Federation of French Production and the National Associa, tiOn of Economic Expansion have been holding off. We do not wonder. The scheme really means getting money on a mortgage --:a hopeless way for a nation to pay its debts.
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