Evening star., 1935-11-24
BY WALTER DURANTY.
III WITH 4 HAS DC As1hHN = -
NARIS.-French internal politics
- is conditioned by and depends


- is conditioned by and depends
upon three factors-the fear
A Of war Chat is. fear of Ger
many, the fear of internal strife,
and the fear of imitation (that is,
loss of savings. This may seem ex-
aggerated to a foreign observer but
these factors are present and ominous
in the mind of every Frenchman.
Parisians in particular have not
forgotten the shock of the riots OF
February 6, 1884, which were caused
In no small degree by the Stavisky
scandal. To make that memory more
vivid, the Stavisky trial opened here
recently after long postponement.
True, 1t is Hamlet without the prince
of Denmark, for the fabulous swindler
met his death last year In SwitZer-
land, self-murdered or murdered, as
the case may be. Nevertheless, his
ghost may walk to trouble France
in this hour of uncertainty and fear;
the StaviSky trial can be another
DreyfuS case to split France asundef
with revelations of political corrup-
ton.
Or it may miss fire or be damped
down to become the cause celebre"
of a woman, Arlette Stavisky, the
swindler's widow, like the trials of
Nine. Steinheil and ThereSe Humbert.
Arlette's counsel, Maitre Moro Giaf-
feri, has not missed a trick in the
attempt to defend his client by dra-
matizing her as woman.
Opinion on the subject is divided
In Paris. Every one admits that SEN
Sational evidence in the trial could
have great political effects, but the
general impression at the start was
that Moro-Giafferi and his client
would steal the limelight," to the
exclusion of more serious issues.
Nazi Success Is Shock.
The prime cause Of the existing un-
easiness in France-if one may use SO
mild TERMS the rise of Nazi Ger
many, with its fragrant program of
reducing the Versailles treaty to a
scrap of paper. The success of Hit
ier-not to mention Mussolini or
Stalin-has brought home to the
French, who are nothing if not loai-
cal. the advantages of dictatorship
and a uniparty system, which can
act rapidly and deciSively where a
democracy is forced to argue and to
wait.
In the United States and England,
this inherent weakness of a demo-
cratic regime is Offset by the powers
vested. respectively. in the President
and the cabinet. or perhaps, one
might say, that it is Offset by the BIZ
party system, which enables either
President or cabinet, when appointed
by the vote of an assured majority, to
act on behalf of the country as a
whole. In France, however. there is
not one party or two parties, but a
multitude of parties, groups and
ciiques, whose diffusion-and con-
3usion-have reached such a point in
recent years as to make the task of
government exceedingly and unduly
difficult.
Thus, at present, for instance, the
fate Of the Laval ministry hangs upon
the inner politics of the Radical-So-
cialist and Socialist parties, which are
as divided among themselves as any
house that somehow goes on standing
despite its apparent insecurity. Mean
while, "the enemy is at the gates;
1t Is merely question of time before
Germanys rearmament is sufficiently
complete for her to challenge the ter
Titor1al clauses of the Versailles treaty.
French Distrust Dictators.
In this juncture, therefore, it is only
natural that France should talk of
dictatorship and envy the solidarity of
Germany, Italy and the U. S. S. R.
But there are two great obstacles to
dictatorship in France: First. that the
mass Of the French people doesn't like
dictatorship and won't have it: second,
that there is no one in France of die
tator caliber, not even a Huey Long
or a Father Coughlin, much less a
MuSsolini, Hitler or Stain. The die
tatorial or uni-party movement, such
as it is, is confined today to the ex-
treme right, as expressed by the "Croix
de Fue," and its opera-bouffe leader,
Col de Ia ROGUE.
Once upon a time, the Commu-
nists had ideas of proletarian dicta-
torship, but that bold dream has been
submerged-at least for the present
in the united front" which pledges
Communists and the ultra-left to vote
for the moderate left and liberal CEN
ter: That is to say, for the very po-
litical elements which Moscow a few
years ago was so passionately de-
nouncing as social-traitors and social