1938-03-11 — Page 18

THE HONGKONG Telegraph, FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 1988.

THE

"COMMON COLD"

IS A

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The

Hongkong Telegraph.

FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 1938.

COMPLICATIONS MAY BE PAINFUL

The principles involved in the current dispute between Great Britain and the United States in connection with sovereignty of two little mid-Pacific islands, are interesting. One way or another it is possible that the settlement will involve the es- tablishment of a precedent. Roughly the two powers con- cerned must deelde what constitutes defence of a claim to sovereignty; whether discovery or occupation provides the best proof of possession,

Looking at the thing from a common-sense point of view, and applying the rules of owner- {ship which are accepted in general by civilised society, it

POPULAR

FRON

BACK SEAT DRIVERS

-Apologies to Gurney in Melbourne Herald

French Premiers

don't last

IVE HUNDRED AND ONE to one is

F25

as handsome a majority as a Govern-

ment could desire. And if arithmetic went for anything in French politica Premier Chautemps should have been fairly sure of a long innings.

But arithmetic goca for little enough. In the Chamber blg majorities can melt overnight.

Nor, contrariwise, could one argue that the Chautemps Cabinet, drawn from a minority, was sure to crash quickly,

You never quite know. It is as uncertain as cricket; whether as glorious is matter of taste.

How is it I have been asked the question a score of times in the past fortnight—that, on the whole and comparatively, British Governments are co stable, French Governments so unstable?

The average life of a French Government in the

nearly 70 years of the Third Republic is, I believe,

· rather under six-months, ---In the same period the- average life of a British Government is between three and four years.

Roughly, the "systems" are the same. The Government is responsible to the It laste

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ment is difficult. But experi- ence has shwn that govern- make things hard for themselves in dealings of this kind; and all too frequently such trivial beginnings have brought painful and even dan gerous complications in their train.

To argue that discovery con- stitutes the chief claim to ownership seems a little bit un- reasonable. Particularly might acceptance of this thesis be embarrassing to the United States, for the world has not yet forgotten Columbus. Surely It is plain that occupation must have the most important bear- Ing upon questions of owner- ship. Occupation pre-supposes some sort of development. If Bovereignty is not immediately challenged when occupation is jfirst attempted, it must be taken that there is no objection. If a government suddenly realiaes that

the land in question has some particular value either as an air base or naval station and belatedly contests ownership, the onus is positively upon the The party not in occupation, same argument holda' good in a case where an island has been abandoned. In fact, it bolle down to a simple statement: :

Unprotested occupation of such islands as these in dispute, providing it is generally known

while it has a majority, Beaten on a major issue it resigns.

Yet the result in the two coun- tries is so different. Why?

First reason I think is this: that

there is, in the two Constitutions. a difference which, not very im- portant at first sight, has fer- reaching consequences. It is in the Parliament.

law and custom about dissolving

N Great Britain, the Crown (which is in prac-

can dissolve Parliament at any moment.

Now in France that is not so. Under Articlo 5 of the Constitution, the President can dissolve the Chamber only with the assent of the Senate.

But that assent is not easy to get. And in practice the power is nover used. It has, indeed, only been used once-by President MacMahon in 1877.

Since then every French Cham- ber has lived out its full term.

Now that has a profound effect on the relation between a Govern- ment and its supporters.

The British Member of Parlia- ment knows that a successful re- volt against the Government on

some single issue means almost Ho will face the expense of new election, In which ho

certainly a dissolution. have to may lose his seat and his Party its majority.

E

VEN leaving personal considerations aside, he may endanger all sorts of other poilcies and blila on which he is quite as keen as on the particular issue on which he is

ngin the Government." It makes him cautious.

So, for instance, the Irisir Na- tionalists, for the sake of Home Rule, kept

cept Asquith in power from 1910 to the war, though they hated much that the Liberais did,

Now the French deputy who gets - Premier: he has annoyed with- been supporting need have no such qualma, If he helps to defeat, say,

•M;; Chosć! he is in hoʻdanger of s dizidiution. He is there, for thờ aur Longwelope

FRIDAY NIGHT IS AMAMI NIGHT and not kept secret, should es an alloy the bill or tablish sovereignty beyond any I must buy I mean, of course,

Latest in a very long lins of French premiers, MI Chautemps

Baya

tow words to the Paris Press.

A

politically, not financially) sup- port from the same Chamber,

60, whereas, In England, the Government tends to be master of a House it can always kill, in France the Chamber is master of a Government it can always kill, The House is responsive to the discipline Of She Whips: the Chamber knows no such discipline.

That is difference the Brst. Difference the second is that whereas in a British Parlament there are usually only two or three parties which matter, in France there is normally a whole series of groups, sometimes rather ill- defined.

When dissident groups do form themselves here, they always tend after a while to merge again into one of the bigger parties.

Τ

THE Peellies who broko away from the Tories fused with the Liberals. Chamberlain's Liberal Unionists were absorbed by the Conserva- tives. Present-day "Not-Liba," and "Nat-Labs." are going the samo way.

נז

It is, in part, a consequence of the same cause. Just as the indi-. vidual,

the group, here, cannot chop and change so easily.

It finds itself always supporting the X Government, and compromi- sing over differences in order to do so and so the differences gradu- ally fade.

The alternative to X is the en- tirely opposito Y, plus the risks of an election. In France the im- mediate alternative la the not very different Z. Bo the groups have their freedom and keep their Geparate existence. And becauso they are many, the discipline less and the gradations easier, indi- vidunis pass more caally from one to another.

matter, here: in France fax mure,”

usual. Think of the number of

Brians. Laval, Paul-Boncour, for example.

Other things help. The fact that In the Chamber the seats, instead of facing each other as Govern-

THE "VERY IDEA"

ment benches and Opposition HAVING NO circle, grading, without any sharp DOLLARS IS

benches, are ranged in a semi-

frontier line. from "extreme right Lo extreme left," has come psychological effect. The electoral system, too, helps to create the group system.

It has varied much in the history of the Repúblic. But always it has had either some rough sort of

P.R." or else the second ballot,

Either is favourable to minority

groups which the British method

to bludgeon or intimidate into impotence.

Again, there is something in national temperament. The Frenchman is far more individual, far less infected than the English- man with "team spirit.

They say that nothing like the Tiller Giria has ever been produced by the French stage: there is in French politics more than a touch of the same. reluctance to sub- ordinate one's own personality to the interests of one's "side.”

Finally, there is an historical reason. The average Englishman has a hankering for a "strong" Government,

ent, The average French- man still rather dreads it.

The Third Republie came into being on the wreck of the Second Empire; It has always been haunted-if diminishingly-by the fear of a new Bonapartism.

more

Na way the working of Fronch Parliamentary Institutions is democratic than the British. The supremacy of Parliament 58 more constantly and effectively asserted.

But the price paid for that is, iniovitably, a comparativo inata- bility of French Governments which has its

disadvantages, though foreigners who judgo that Cabinet instability and continual charge must necessarily mean national weakdes deceive them, selves badly, but

Walch is the better way, the

Socialists and Communists who Beitian or the French? Chacun & HEYS Ngone over. rotolerand, co 803 Ponsmapoli nation to šta taste.

CENTSLESS

TO US (Joke)

By Eddie Kelly, Pauper

with CLUTTERED up

millionaires, Hongkong

is, with all these Empress of Britain tourists in port.

Anyway, wealth is a curse, curse it. Especially when you can't get it.

Sordid money-grubbing never ua appeal to us. On pay days. we shudder when we handle the filthy stuff.

Just dress, that's what it is. It brings out one's worst instincts, and lowers one to the level of beasts of the field.

That's why wo never have any money. We're too sensitivo.

All our friends haven't got any money either.

There's going to be a terrible: dearth until the next Irish Sweep.

Wo, for one, shall have to swim across the, harbour to work on-and after our current ferry ticket ex- pires on March 81.

Still, there's one thing about be-- ing poor-you can die with dignity. There'll be no bickering of rola- tives and legatoon at our graveside when we pass: Into the Great Be- yond.

Taipane

chita,

Them

will, Jost, tene) ED ORN and a momens t- silent