Evening star., 1926-05-23

feat of unions to lower wages or de
crease working hours. Mr. Baldwin en-
acted from the officials of the offend
ing unions, as a condition of rein
statement of strikers written ac-
acknowledgement that the declaration or
the general strike was a wrongful
act and that reinstatement of the
strikers does not eXtinguish any right
Of the employers as to suits for dam
ages. 1t is understood. however. that
Mr.. Baldwin has privately assured
those officials that. if the unions be-
have handsomely. there will be no
suits for breach of contract.
Again. after IL years. the pound Is
on a parity with gold: i.e.. 1t is worth
S4.S66 It's low point was in 1920;
namely. S3.1S. And this hot-foot on the
end of the general strike is a remark
able thing.
1t will be recalled that the Amer
lean dollar. brought low by the civil
War. did not recover to parity with
gold until 1879.
F'rance-On Tuesday the French
franc made a sickening plunge down to
the equivalent of 2.72 cents. new low.
Through intervention by the French
government it has since recovered
considerably. 1t was at 1927 cents on
New York exchange on Friday.
NJ. Poret the French finance min
lister. has been in London discussing
with Winston Churchill. chancellor of
the exchequer, the French debt to
Britain: but it does not appear that
they got very far.
The French Parliament reconvenes
on May -.
France has foreign population of
2845. .OOO< OF these 801 900 are ltaI
ians. ATT 900 Spaniards. 100000 Bel
gians. 10000 Poles, 100000 Russians,
81, 900 British. 10000 Germans. 5O,Ooo
Americans. 1900 South Americans.
There are said to be 5000 American n
students in the Latin quarter OF Paris.
The French and Spanish forces are
making considerable progress into the
Riff country. Apparently no very
great resistance has been offered.
The Damascus correspondent of the
London Daily Express reports as fol-
lows: On the night of May some
200 Di.uses attacked certain Ffench
posts at Damascus. killing soldiers
and capturing 90. They then entered
into the suburb called Ell Meidan ana
barricaded themselves. The next
morning 5000 French troops sur
rounded the suburb, whereof the pop
ulation is about 10000. and demanded
that the Druses he handed over else
the quarter would be bombarded. The
response came that the inhabltants
had no arms and were helpless in the
matter. The French authorities then
allowed one hour (quite insuftic1ent)
within which the inhabitants mlght
take refuge in a defined area, after
which bombardment would begln:
Bombardment with 3-inch guns ana
4.8 howitZers and from airplanes pc
gan about noon May Z and continued
is hours. Result: About 500 1nnapl-
tants of Ell Meidan and 100 Druses
killed. the remainder of the Druses
escaping; 20 of the French forces Kill
ed and 80 wounded; 800 houses de-
stroyed.
The Daily Express correspondent
states that it is generally admitted
by the Syrians that the French au
thorities could not have acted much
differently. The French government
has issued a denial of the above, TO
the following effect: That the Druses
attacked French posts and afterWaro
took refuge in the Meidan suburb. as
stated in the Daily Express report.
That, however, the Meidan suburb
had been almost completely evacuated
of it's population, which had taken
refuge in the city proper because the
suburb had become a rendezvous for
bandits. That the French attacked
Ell Meidan, as reported. but only after
giving ample time to the few remain
ing inhabitants to fly to safety, which
they did. That the casualties, there
fore, were confined to Druses and
French troops, So Druses being kill
ed and II taken prisoners. the French
having five killed and eight wounded
That some houses were set afire, but
that this was because the bandits
had piled lot of infiammable ma.
tertal IN Ell Meidan MhereMith to IRE