1938-03-11 — Page 6

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 1938.

THE

"COMMON COLD"

IS A

PUBLIC DANGER!

DON'T REGARD A COLD WITH LIGHTNESS AS IT FREQUENTLY LEADS TO SOMETHING MUCH MORE SERIOUS AND IS SO OFTEN PASSED ON TO THE WHOLE FAMILY.

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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-Pacifle 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- eerned must decide 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

POPULA

FRONT

BACK SEAT DRIVERS

-Apologies to Gurney in Melbourne Herald

French Premiers

F

don't last

IVE HUNDRED AND ONE to one is

as handsome a majority as a Govern-

ment could desire. · And if arithmetic

went for anything in French politics Premier Chautemps should have been fairly sure of a long innings.

But arithmetle goes for little enough. In the Chamber big majorities can melt overnight.

Nor, contrariwise, could one argue that the Chaulemps 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 stable, French Governments so unstable?

50

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 18 between three and four years.

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

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ment is difficult. But experi- ence has shwn that govern- make things hurd 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 sovereignty is not immediately challenged when occupation is {first attempted, it must be taken that there is no objection. If a government suddenly realises 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 party not in occupation. The same argument holds good in a case where an island has been abandoned. In fact, it boils down to a simple statement:

01.

|

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 think is this: that there is, in the two Constitutions, a difference which, not very im- portant at first sight, has for- reaching consequences. It is in the law and custom about dissolving Parliament.

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

can dissolve Parlament at any moment.

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

But that assent not easy to cot. And in practice the power is never 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 Parlis- ment knows that a successful re- volt against the Government on

some single issue means almost certainly a dissolution. He will

face the have to

expense of 1. now election, in which he may lose his seat and his Party its majority.

E

VEN leaving personal considerations aside, ho 'may endanger all sorts of other policies and bills on

which he is quite na keen as on the particular issue on which he is

'agin the Government." It makes him cautious.

Bo, for instance, the Irish Na- tionalists, for the sake of Home Rulo, kopt Asquith in power from 2010 to the war, though they hated much that the Liberals did.

Now the French deputy who gets annoyed with a Promior he has supporting need have no such I he helps to defeat, say, Unprotested occupation

14. Cirose he is in no danger of a such islands as theso in dispute, dissolution. He is there for the providing it is generally known duration

#REM, Chioso can swallow the pill or restat he resigns his successor must buy, IX mean, of course,

FRIDAY NIGHT IS AMAMI NIGHT and not kept secret, should es tablish sovereignty beyond any

Latest in a very long line of French premiers, M. Chautemps

few says a words to the Paris Press.

politically, not financially) Bup- port from the same Chamber.

So, 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 the Whips: the Chamber knows no such discipline.

That is difference the Brat. Difference the second is that whereas in a British Parliament there are usually only two or three parties which matter, in Frence 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.

T

HE Poelites who broko away from the Tories fused with the Liberals. Chamberlain's Libera! Unionists were absorbed by the Conserva- tives. Present-day "Nat-Libs," and "Nat-Labs." are going the . same way.

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

The alternativo to X is the en- tirely opposite Y, plus the risks of an election. In France the im- mediate alternative is the not very different 2. So the groups have their freedom and keep their separate existence. "And" because they are. many, the disciplina-téss and the gradations caster. Indi viduals pass more cnally from one to another Leave

one's party is a serious matter here: in France far more usual Think of the number of

་

Briand. Laval. Paul-Boncour, for example.

Other things help. The fact that in the Chamber the seats, Instead of facing each other as Govern- ment benches and

THE "VERY IDEA"

Opposition HAVING NO

benches, are ranged in semi-

circle, grading, without any sharp DOLLARS IS

frontier line. from extremo right" to "extreme left." hus The

some psychological effect. CENTSLESS

TO US (Joke)

electoral system, too, helps to create the group system. It has varled much in the history of the Republic. 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 tands to bludgeon or intimidate into impotence.

CLU

By Eddie Kelly, Pauper

LUTTERED

up with millionaires, Hongkong Again, there is something In is, with all these Empress of national temperament. The Britain tourists in port

Frenchman is far more individual, far less infected than the English- man with team spirit."

They say that nothing like the Tiller Girls has ever been produced by the French stago: 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 The average Englishman has a hankering for a "strong" Government. The average French- man sill rather dreads it.

reason.

The Third Republle came into being on the wreck of the Becond Empire. It has always been haunted-if diminishingly--by the fear of a now Bonapartism.

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

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

Just dross, 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 we nover have any money. We're too sensitive.

All our friends haven't got any money either.

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

We, for one, shall have to swim across the harbour to work on and after our current ferry ticket ex-

Na way the working of French Parliamentary institutions la, more democratic than tho British. pires on March 31,

Still, there's one thing, about be- The supremacy of Parilament is

constantly and effectively ing poor--you can die with dignity. more

There'll be no bickering of rela tives and legatoes at our graveside when wo pass into the Great Bo-

asserted.

But the price paid for that is, inevitably, a comparative Insta- bility of French Government-yond.

disadvantages, |** which has its though foreigners who judge that Cabinet instability and continual change, muss deceive them- must necessarily mean national weakness dece

badly. which is the better way, the

Socialists and Communist who British of the French? Chacun à bays gone over Millerandion gotench nation to its taste,

Taipans will just tear up our ohits, stand a moment in alient grief, and pass on muttering to therinelves.

new what

Jonas of 20 them

We don

or twe

they can