The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-03-03
POHVCARE NOW.
 POLITICAL, PIVOT
Likened Unto Woodrow Wilson
 In Campaign Of
By JOHN o'BRiEN n eased wlra fe Tha Aue- Hers

PARIS, March 2.-Just as Woodrow Wilson's personality and policies, home and foreign, were the pivot around which swayed the electoral passions of the country in the presidential campaign of 1916, so Raymond Poincare, former president of the French republic and now premier, will be the commanding figure in the April elections to the French chamber. @s
 POincare was not Premier when the Treaty of Versailles was signed, but it is no secret that he, as chief magistrate of the republic, had ahlot to do with 1t. More than that, he was president when the war began and the cry "Poin- care-la- -Guerre," (Poincare the War maker) has already been chosen as a slogan by the extreme radicals.
 It was Poincare who translated into action the patriotical call of Miller and for Sacred Union" of all parties dur ing the conflict and, since he left the Elysee for the Qui d Orsay, maintained that union in peace time in the guise of the National Bloc" of deputies who have supported him through thick and thin during his tenure of the premier ship.
 Win the French elections provide a counterpart to the landslide for labor which overturned all the preconceived notions of the British parliamentary system? That is the dominating ques- ton here. Opponents of the policy of the National Bloc," and these oppon- ents are of all shades of political opin- Ion, from the extremists of the left socialists and communists-to those of the right-conservatives and monarch tDt AA.k AZ brought into being at time of national stress, has outlived it's usefulness and that 1t is time for the various parties representing the French nation to reas- sume their independence.
 Describes Block
 The ''Bioc" itself is a strange anal gam. It includes as a central pivot what is officially known as the group of the : democratic and republican entente, meaning the conservative republicans numbering in the present chamber 181 members, and around this more or less in conformity with its ideas are the f, democratic republican left, consisting on S9 deputies; the radical and radical socialist group with 84 members, and the republican left numbering 58. It was by consolidating these forces that Premier Poincare has been able to win one vote of confidence after anoth. CT on every grave issue that has come up during his regime, sl.-. ....
 But, united nominally in the cham Der, these groups have for months been straining at the leash. Nhe reason is not far to seek. Andre Tardieu, one of the signatOries of the peace treaty, Is member of one of these groups but he is an avowed political opponent of Poincare. Men like Herriot, mayor of Lyons and a strong partisan of recog- milton of the soviets as we'll as of an understanding with Germany, Mandel, who believes himself the exalted rep resentative of "Tiger" Clemenceau, and dozens of others are tired of being mere pawns in the parliamentary game.
 They have their ears to the ground and they profess to hear rumblings that tell them the country is ready for a move to "the left," in other words that the time has come for a more radical policy, at home and abroad. The recent partial election for the Senate. in which one-third of the mem Ders Of that body were forced to face the verdict of their constituencies. showed that belief has a certain amount of basis in fact. Several ex-ministers lost their places in the Senate. Two 2ut-apd-out. socialists took their seats that August assembly.
 Cost Of Living H~5
 Poincare will have to tell the coun- try why the, cost of living has not been brought down. gFfenchmen who can no more do without. bread than a chorus without a ipstick wonder why the cost of that commodity is always increasing. All the ordinary articles of prime necessity have doubled or strebI- % in price since Poincare took office, The franc has gone to pieces. More than years occupancy of the in- dustrial heart of Germany, the Ruhr has brought nothing in the way of ac. tnal cash to relieve the almost unbear. able burden of the French taxpayer. The entente with England has been practically disowned by the British and the chances are thGt5with the new wave of feeling dominant in England. 1t will go by the board.i. =
 Organizations, representing workers in every branch of industrial activity. are clamoring for increases in wages which they have been told are imnos. Sbie until the financial situation of She country has been restored somewhat toward the normal. But the French practical mind refuses to dwell too nro. foundly on the international aspect of the problem. It wants action. and unless Poincare can show that he has practical plan to solve such uues- tions as the cost of living and the fall ot the franc, the French electors are likely to lend a willing. ear to those ~ho profess they have Such a plan.