Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1949-01-16
France Must |
Spend Less
Production Held More
Important Than
Distribution
By Poul Reynoud
Former Prime Minister Of France
Ia intaruianad hu d W Rrnnnnl

(As Interviewed by D. W. Breson)
PARASITIC basic problem OF
France today, as it was before the
war, is economic rather than budg-
etary. More serious than our
failure to produce enough is the
fact that the French state is sp"nd-
ing too much.
What the French people have tc
accept is the fact that to get back
even to the standard of living OF
1898, and to pay for imports and to
rebuild 100000 houses destroyed
or damaged, they will have to work
far harder and postpone lots of de-
sirable things.
But what about social progress
and social justice?" a very eminent
Socialist colleague asked me re-
Gently. I could Mly say that first
things must come first, and produc-
ton before distribution.
Incomes Rearranged
In any case, you Aneo-Saxon OBJ
servers do not realize how far the
war and imitation have altered the
distribution of incomes in France. In
my bourgeois district the housewife
has to haggle over the price of meat
1t is in the working-class districts
that housewives can afford not to
haggle-and it is there that meat is
dearest. I'm not saying at all that
a skilled workman should not be
better off than a petit bourgeois.
But you Anglo-Saxons ought to
notice that he is better off.
And the peasants? Yes, the peas
ants are a problem. They were al
ways bad taxpayers, because Of the
abuses of which they were victims
under the monarchy. But they were
very thrifty savers. They lent their
savings to the state and did pro-
vide France with the necessary
capital for defense and industrial
progress. But now! Well, up to
now they do not trust the franc,
and you cannot blame them. A
bullock for them is strong box
on four legs, and if they do not sell
it they eat it.
Deserve More Credit
My peasant ancestors in the Alps
ate meat only five or six times a
year. 1t was hard on them (they
were very healthy all the same), but
it was good for France. Only by
restoring faith in the franc can you
get the peasant to save and SELL
and, as I have been saying. for many
years past, a policy Of production
will givetus sound finances as moth
ing else will. OF course, the Amer
leans are entitled to look at our
activities with vigilance, but it is
to their interest as well as ours
to preserve the dignity and author
ity of the French state.
And the Fourth Republic has
shown that it has authority. 1t has
order successfully under
great pressure; it deserves more
credit for that than you are CIV
ing it. OF course, it has still to
succeed in the economic sphere,
and on that I have said recently in
the Assembly that the regime
should either change its policy or
hand over the job to some one else.
But people Of good will are little
surprised that the generally young
and inexperienced persons (mean-
ing the Gaullists), under whose
lead the worst mistakes were made
after the liberation, should be so
confident today that they know the
answers to the problems they made
so difficult in 1944-5.
Respects German Qualities
Am I satisfied with the Ruhr
agreement? I attach less impor-
lance to that than do most of my
compatriots. I have not forgotten
the lessons of the two wars. I have
great respect for the qualities of the
Germans-in peace and war. do
not believe for a moment that the
Ruhr statute will last a year after
the military evacuation of Germany.
OF course, we need, we all need. the
economic potential of Western Ger
many. But Germany was the great
beneficiary of the old system of in
ternational trade, yet she twice
kicked over the ants nest. The
moment Allied armies leave Ger
many any agreement will be an
odious "Diktat" of course, you
and we will give way. It is not true
that you learn only from your own
experience. You do not learn even
from that!
There is one other lesson that we
all have to learn. We are all of us,
you, we French, the BelgianS, the
Germans, assuming as natural and
right a system of world trade that
maybe cannot be restored and Ger
tainly will not be restored in the old
form. 1t was very nice for us all to
be the workshop of the world, to
take other peoples raw materials
and send them our manufactured
goods instead. In my opinion that
day is over.
Favors Unified Europe
I am not at all sure that we shall
be able to find markets for all the
things we propose to make, that we
shall be able to use, profitably. all
the equipment we all want to have.
We are all in the same boat, and the
beginning of wisdom is to realize
that and not to think we can assume
the rest of the world Is going to sup
port us in the way we got aecus-
toned to. 1t is a pity, but it is bet
ter to face the truth now than to