FRANCE: Change at Crisis

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Reshuffle. The late Aristide Briand was Premier of France more times than he could remember. Most French politicians with the length of service of Fernand Bouisson have held the job at least once. Last week was M. Bouisson's first try and he completed a Cabinet, and a workmanlike one at that, within 24 hours. Essentially it was the Flandin Cabinet over again, with a few important shifts. Its principal members:

Premier & Minister of Interior: Fernand Bouisson

Ministers Without Portfolio: Marshal Pétain, Edouard Herriot, Louis Marin

Foreign Affairs: Pierre Laval

Finance: Joseph Caillaux

War: General Louis Félix Maurin

Navy: François Piétri

Air: General Victor Dénain

Labor: Louis Frossard

But every political observer knew that if devaluation is to be postponed even a few months, the Bouisson Cabinet had to have the same emergency powers that the Flandin Cabinet had vainly begged for. Would it get them? The proposition was immediately put to a vote in the Chamber of Deputies. By an exceedingly narrow margin the Chamber voted to grant the Cabinet power to rule by decree until Oct. 31. Premier Bouisson, flushed with success, uprose to lecture the Chamber in schoolmasterly fashion, telling them to wind up their affairs and go home in a week. But his optimism was premature. The vote had been so close that a recalling of the roll was demanded. On the re-call the Chamber, by a margin of two votes (264-to-262) reversed itself. All France was stunned when Premier Bouisson, pale and agitated, called his Cabinet together and announced its resignation. The members promptly departed for the palace of President Lebrun to apprise him of their action. With France thus thrown once more into political chaos. President Lebrun summoned Jules Jeanneney, President of the Senate, and other political leaders to discuss the formation of a new Cabinet. There was some possibility that M. Herriot, radical-socialist leader, would be called to head a Cabinet with a left-wing majority.

Gold. In the meantime gold, as it had for weeks before, continued pouring all week from the Bank of France. For the week ending May 24, last official figure, $208,665,035 worth left the bank's vaults. Experts of other banks estimated that $329,000,000 more were withdrawn during the following sennight. Since 1928 the only way a French citizen can get his hands on actual gold is to buy a brick, the smallest of which weighs 26 ¾ lb. t., costs $12,000 (at current exchange). But Frenchmen have the money. Clubbing together, shopkeepers, concierges, little lawyers, and the like sent seedy representatives with brief cases stuffed with paper notes to exchange for gold bricks. Every plane out of Paris was loaded with frightened investors, their suitcases bulging with gold.

Temporarily, news of the Bouisson Cabinet and rumors of an extra long summer vacation for the Chamber of Deputies halted the flood. Newshawks hurrying around to the Bank of France found nervous gold buyers still at the windows, but the lines no longer reached out into the open courtyard.