The Waterbury Democrat., 1936-09-29

The bill was submitted to the senate this morning by Finance Minister Vincent Auriol and referred to the finance committee, which met at once under Joseph Caillaux.
 The senate adjourned until to- morrow morning when it will begin debate. It was intended that the senate should stay in session until 1t passed the bill, that the chamber should then meet at once to vote on possible senate amendments, and that the bill might be published in the official journal of Thursday and so become law.
 An exhausted chamber passed the bill, comprising 25 articles and pro- viding for 8 slice of from one-fourth to one-third in the francs present gold value, at 9:30 8. m. today (3:3O a. m. est) after 24 hour session by a vote of $50 to 221. It remained in session another l 1-2 hours.
 The senate met at 10 a. m. Tn emergency session and received 1t from Finance Minister Auriol. It was hoped at first that the finance committee would report it this aft ernoon and that the senate begin it's debate at once, and vote on 1t in time for the bills promulgation as law in tomorrow's official journal. The senate refused to be so hurried.
 Debate in the chamber was long but 1t consisted for the most part in explanation by deputies of their reasons for voting as they did. Sem ate debate will be 8 different mat ter, because strong opposition was expected from the more conserav- tive upper house. However, passage was regarded as certain.
 In the chamber. the big fight was on a provision in the government bill for a sliding wage scale for cer- tain classes of government employees, designed to adjust wages to buying power.
 The government had to revise the provision in order to obtain the support of the radicals in its left front coalition. The radicals threatened to withdraw their mem bers from the cabinet unless the sliding scale provision was with drawn. So the government sub stituted provision giving the cabi- net full power until December 31 tq act by decree-without consent of paxliainent-to maintain the francs buying power and repress any un-- .iuStified price rise.
 The substitute provision was ap- proved by 355 to 199, and passage of the ensemble-the complete bill- became certainty.
 The final vote, on the ensemble, was $50 to 221.
 At l0:30 a. m., after 25 1-2 hours, the chamber adjourned. It had not been necessary even, on any of the votes, to pose the question of con- fidence in the government, so agreed were deputies that the bill must pass to stop the hemorrhage of gold from the Bank of France and, by virtue of Understandings" with the United States and Great Britain, to try by readjusting the franc, key stone of the nations which had held to gold, to revive trade.
 The new franc will be worth be- tween 20.15 and 22.95 to the dollar, compared with the closing rate of l5.18 to the dollar last Friday when the devaluation decision was made public. =
 Finance Minister Vincent Auriol was detailed to hand the bill to the senate.
 The feeling of deputies of all par ties was made clear in the chamber they conceded that devaluation must come, even though they spoke formally against the bill.
 Premier Leon Blum closed debate In the chamber as day succeeded night.
 No other government, he argued, could have acted otherwise than his did. He asked deputies to re-