af, ar.o
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PERTH, WEDNESD AY, WITMER 9, 1946.
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SEVENTY-THIRD YEAR
French are Regaining Sell-Confidence Creative Cynicism Regarding Politics Social Stability Centres on Peasantry
Gallic Sanity Checks
Communism By ROBERT SPEAIGHT, in "The Tablet."
"La vie se reprend:" one is be- Once again, the issue is not realJoined together in prayer and friendship, prisoners -of -war and deportees met again recently at ginning to hear these words on ly with the politicians at all. The Lourdes. the lips of a good many French- French, being at once an ironic men, and they mean rather more and reasonable people, understand sure that what was than they say. They mean that that you must have some kind of bord, the exquisite grace of Chau- to claim him as an important ele- first, to make mont. and the grandeur of Am- ment of social and political sta- stable and sane in their high civithere is more food to eat and government, but they treat all boise, with the tiny chapel of St. bility. It is significant that not lisation was maintained, and they more fuel to cook it with, but governments with an equal scepHubert flung out on the ramparts even the Communist Party has denied to the French Communist they mean also that there is an ticism. It is important, just now, like the last jewel from the trea- dared to suggest an expropriation Party the right to call themselves all-round increase of confidence. to realise the depth of their disilThey are disgusted with sury of the Middle Ages, as he of the land, and it is all the more the party of the "Renaissance This may, of course, depend on lusion. and their pre-war politicians, whom was to the stresses and the spans interesting that, in spite of this Francaise." Some wanted a modthe material ameliorations of Mont -Louis. As we motored tactical restraint, Communism is erate and humanist Socialism; on the certainty of a great har- they never trusted at all; they along the left bank of the Loire, receding in the rural areas as it others, again, and in particular vest and on the hopes of a good pre disgusted with the Governwe discussed the problems of his is in the large towns. the students of the. Sorbonne, are I think, however, that ment of Vichy, which, in the pervintage. country and time and again he turning to a Trotskyist Communthe rebirth of confidence goes soA of its venerable Chief, they early This it delay-for is too against repeated the same phrase, "Nous ism by way of protest deeper than that, and I do not for a few moments trusted almost part in to talk a defeat-is of yet manquons des chefs." Yet this the French Communist Party and think that it has much to do with implicitly: they are now begin- young man, was but revival of confidence, to a due I told afterwards, its miserable subservience to Stapolitics or at any rate with poli- ning to be disgusted with the poliit is also due to a revival of ideal- lin. It is significant that the who would undoubtedly rise to an ism. ticians. The marked difference ticians of the Resistance, When I was at Grenoble I most discussed book of the moimmensely important position in of atmosphere between April and have degraded French justice to of a French railways. That same met Jean Daste, the leader ment is Koestler's "Darkness at June-the difference between a a "popular" level quite incompat- the night I spent under his hospit- group of young actors who have Noon." day heavy with suppressed thun ible with security for the comtown in the headquarters their able roof at Tours and met his der and a day, clear but still mon man; indeed the one man wife and three children Of course, the literary genuflecHe was from which they go out and give blowy, from which the storm has immune from their distrust is Gentheir plays-classics, ancient and tions still go on, but before a man in whom the imaginative a rehave lifted-can partly be explained by eral de Gaulle, who they modern, and mimes-in the neigh- diminished audience. When 1' They and the practical instincts were bouring countryside. the rejection of the referendum spected but never loved. M. Daste, attended a meeting of the "Union when remarkably combined, and a and painful too recent of the have and the subsequent halting I have said that he was a devout who is the son-in-law of Jacques des Intellectuels Francais" in the Marxist tide. Like all important memory of ,dictatorial governChristian, I have said that he was, Copeau, was previously associated Salle Pleyel, the hall was very with dispense to was to want ment this France, in acts political Quinze, sparsely filled, and the Communin a more than material sense, a with the Compagnie des the direct act of the French peo- Parliament. but they are still askHe who electrified London play -goers ists. or "communicant."' writers builder of the new France. ple; it was a decision taken quite ing themselves how Parliament de seemed to be hurling their recrimand "Viol had found time to organise the with their "Noe" apart from their elected represen- will work. Only a Lucree." Something of the same inations into a void. movement Christian Trade Union The people descended tatives. kind is being created at Grenoble, languid applause greeted their the he showed me Tours, and in week a When I was in Paris for into the street and made it pera deliberate stale bombardments. It was not social centre, with its Chapel, din- and it represents fectly clear, in an orderly and before Easter, I had an impresand until Pierre Emmanuel made his library, which he turning away from the fever ingrooms and before powerless of a sion people good-humoured way. what they All this facility of Paris towards a com- plea for the artist to descend into had planned and built. I do machine. political their wanted. munal essay in self-discipline. M. the depth of his own personality not have that impression any work, so concrete, so harmonious, Daste spoke to me of the need for and enrich himself with contemthat the longer. The scepticism persists. and so well -considered, had no true discipline in France, and we plation that the audience awoke This is why I say It was an French have regained confidence but it is not a sterile or a despair- political implications. Ber- from its torpor. This struck me of many-of the went on to talk of Georges I remember with example-one in themselves rather than in their ing scepticism. nanos, whose voice seemed one as a sign of the times.' The Reresuming confid people French politicians. I could not discover a special pleasure a day spent in faded. The of the few voices unspoilt by poli- sistance myth has much enthusiasm for any political the valley of the Loire with a ence in themselves. Yet here French people are genuinely gratetical contaminations. party, outside the active adher- young engineer who had directed was another example of what ful for what the Resistance has ents of each. IA minority of the rebuilding of many of the Let me give some others. In may perhaps call a creative scep- done, but they make a careful -Dome, of Puy -de for young department a the bombed bridges. He was Catholics undoubtedly voted ticism. A number of young peo- distinction between patriots and the M.R.P., but I did not hear man in his early thirties, and he not far from Clermont-Ferrand, I ple, refusing the easy road of poli- profiteers, 'and they have quietly farmer with a acthe night stayed and acwith strong Pyrenean a friends spoke Catholic my from tical credulity, were getting down taken back the destiny of France There was a striking con- who had done conspicuous work to work and building a new thing. into their own hands. quaintances any suggestion that cent. What excellent It would be hard to imagine three they will make of it on the poliM. Bidault was a great states- trast between the diffidence of in the Resistance; an man or that France had at last his manner and the remarkable example of the substantial pea- types more diversified than my tical plane is still anybody's fm.nd the leaders she was looking feats of reconstruction for which sant proprietor, prosperous and engineer in Touraine my farmer guess. But they have already I was inEven M Yves Farge, for he was, in the main, responsible. intensely independent. for. in the Auvergne, or my young made some important progress all his declarations of war against As we walked over the magnifi- terested to note that, in spite of theatre director at Grenoble. All with the spiritual and intellectual the Black Market, was spoken of cent new bridge at Mont Louis, his war record, he was quite un- three were doing a specialised, es- structure. as an honest but rather noisy fel- where the railway line to Bor- affected by the politics of the Re- sential and constructive job, and (To be Concluded.) "This econiomie diiri- all three would have agreed that low. No one in his senses be- deaux crosses the river, the work- sisttance) won't go "simply in hehe said, congee." had difficulty can on duty man that lieves "tripartisme" "nous manquons des chefs." Yet The people won't these and many more like them THE AMATEUR MUSIOLL tinue indefinitely, or indeed that lievi.kg that this shy and inex in France. CLUB OF PERTH And I must confess will be the chefs of the future; it can possibly provide a basis pressive young man was in fact have it.' Presents The ar- his chief. We had motored past that I received a very strong im- and while France can depend on for stable government. (alias several of the Chateaux which pression that, if Monsieur X and "cadres" of this quality she need ticles of Pierre Bourdan HOLIDAY RHYTHM Pierre Maillaud), in "Le Figaro," I had never seen, and I observed and his like did not want an ec- not despair of her recovery. A Bright Revue. By John Anstey. have demonstrated this with an that, as with the builders of the onomic dirigee, no Government I had the impression that the At ASSEMBLY HALL, PIER ST. incisive certainty fortified by a great Cathedrals-a William of on earth would be able to force 8 p.m. clear knowledge of the English Sens or a Pierre de Craon in Clan- it down their throats. The great- check-perhaps the decisive check Parliamentary system. But nei- del's "I'Annonce Faite a Marie"- est obstacle to the spread of more -recently given to the French OCTOBER 9, 10, 11, 12, 16, 17, 18, 19. due to in Communist Party was ther M. Bourdan nor anyone else his aesthetic and his practical than a limited Socialism positive Admision: 3s. (plus tax). France is precisely this psychol- something much more is prepared to suggest an alter- sense went hand in hand. Plan at Nicholson's. Box native method, although the ad- should rather say, perhaps, that ogy of property, which only a than anti-Communism. It was Entire Proceeds of October 9th. herents of General de Gaulle (of the two senses were identical. widely diffused ownership of land because they wanted something to the Sons of Soldiers' League, One need not ro- else that the French had rejected whom M. Bourdan is not one) are Anyway, he was just as sensitive can inspire. Mt. Hawthorn Branch. ready with an alternative man. to the florid audacity of Cham- manticise the peasant proprietor the Constitution. They wanted