The San Francisco call., 1904-09-17
U1dnts to Be the
Premier of
France.

PARIS, Sept. 16.-At this moment
the eyes of all France are upon Alex
andre Millerand, who is making a de-
termined and by no means hopeless
effort to wrest the Premiership from
Emile Combes. M. Combes has made
one or two errors of policy and many
grievances are harbored against him
by the politicians of different stripes
that make up his working majority.
Advantage is being taken of this state
of things for all it is worth by a re-
Gently formed coalition, of which M.
Millerand is the organizing and di-
recting spirit.
AS it is pretty well known by this
time, M Combes and his Ministery
were only put up by the late M. Wal
deck Rousseau as temporary substi-
tutes for himself and his friends
and for the purpose of testing public
opinion on the Anti Clerical Associa-
ton act, and the Premier held himself
in readiness to return, with all his
colleagues, at the first emergency. But
contrary to expectation the Combes
Ministry have stuck tenaciOusly to
office and maneuvered so cIeverly that
at present they hold the record of
longevity in French political history.
Meanwhile Waldeck- -Rousseaus late
associates are getting impatient at
their long enforced inaction and none
more so than Millerand. whose recent
attack on the Minister, under the pre-
text of an Interpolation on the work :
mems old age pension scheme, to-
gether with the subsequent accusation
by innuendo of blackmail against M.
Edgar Combes, nearly brought about
the Government resignation. The at
tack, 1t is safe to prophesy, will be re-
newed before long on some other
question, and in the uncertain and
intricate game OF French political in
trigue catch-vote will be snatched
at to secure a Government minority;
and the Ministry, with that beautiful
lack of logic which characterizes pub
lie life in France, will resign and re-
tire in dignified protest.
WANTS PREMIERSHIP.
That is the opportunity M. Miller
and foresees, and the Ministry he then
expects to be asked to form is already
constituted He will be content with
nothing less than the Premiership,
making room for his old friend Michel
Lagrave (the late French Commits
sioner at st. Louis. who has come out
of the Carthusian inquiry with very
artl1C1al ndIO Ol III liz
Ministry of Commerce.: Delcasse, who
is a fixture, whatever else may change.
will remain at the Foreign Office, and
Georges Leygues, Waldeck- -Rousseau's s
Minister of Public Instruction. will be
made Minister Of the Interior. Lock-
row, Camille Pelletan's merciless
critic. will go back to the Marine, and
Doumer, il is understood, has made
1t a condition of his support that he
shall have the Colonies. with an espe-
cial eye on Indo-China, which, with
the Japanese war raging in the neigh>
borhood, is giving the French good
deal of uneasiness. Chaumie. who has
already made more than one conces-
sion to the Moderates.. will stick to
his present portfolio of Public In
struction and Beaux-Arts.
Millerand, like Waldeck- Rousseau,
like President Loubet himself, is a
lawyer; indeed the bar furnishes no
mean proportion of the public men of
France. Commencing at a militant So
cialist. he first attracted attention by
a series of very energetic articles in
the labor press. notably in the. Petite
Republique, which at that time was
controlled by Jaures. His chance came
when Waldeck- Rousseau made his ad-
venturous experiment of power with
the queerest coalition Ministry France
had ever seen. General de Callifet, an