New Britain herald., 1924-05-09
POLITICAL TREND
 TOWARD LIBERALS
Party Lines Are Broken and Vague; Unexpected Looked for

Paris, May 9.--The French electoral campaign has been waged in greater political confusion than has existed in the country since, just after the fall of the second empire. royalist parlia- ment was sent to Paris to inaugurate the third republic.
 Party lines are so broken and party politics so vague that political prophets are at a loss to find a basis for any sort of predictions. The only certain element in the situation is that for several months the pendulum has been swinging toward the left, that is to say in favor of the more liberal parties, radicals and socialists, and against the moderate and conservative government majority.
 All the special elections held since last fall, including parliamentary, city and departmental, have shown large gains for the socialists and radicals. Local circumstances entered into some of these results but on the whole they are accepted. even by the moderates and conservatives of the National Block" as showing decided tendency toward radicalism and socialism.
 The radicals and socialists, how ever, have big gains to make if they wrest the majority of the chamber from the national block" which, in 1919 won 116 seats from them and constituted government coalition of 400 members in the lower house, in spite of the fact that the radicals boiled 2,000,000 votes as compared to l,S0o, ,o0O in 1914, and the socialists in creased their vote of 1,400,000 in 1914 to 100000. The radical and socialist coalition, however. will not go to the country with the full strength of the parties as boiled in 1914. The com munists has sapped great deal of the strength of the socialist party. Only the result of the coming election will show just how many votes the com munists have taken, but surface indi- cations are that the faction which takes its orders from Moscow will poll iE the neighborhood of 1,000.000 votes. This would leave the socialists with about the same number, suppos- ing that the two factions together show a small gain over 1914.
 The radical party also has been weakened by the resignation of cx- clusion of number of deputies who supported Poincare's foreign and fiscal policies. These men have formed a new radical federation" which will cooperate with the other groups of the government majority.
 The strength of the different groups in the present chamber is as follows: republican democratic entente Cna- iional block), ITO; independents, mostly royalsts, 27: deputies belong ing 10 no group, 22; republican and social action. 47; republican demo- cratic left, SS. republican left, 56; republican socialists. 32; radicals, S2: socialists. 30; communists, 13.
 Practically all the parties, excepting the communists socialists, radicals, republican socialists and few repub- licans of tho left, were in tho govern mcnt majority and were classed as part of tho national block" The full strength of the chamber was 62G, but a number of seats were vacant and some deputies not inscribed on any list. Tho next chamber will contain only 5S4 members. The radical-so- cialst-republican socialist coalition must win li5 seats from the govern- mcnt majority in order to gain con- troll