Henry W. Ehrmann

The French Peasant and Communism.

The French Communist Party emerged from the national elections of 1951 with a greater number of popular votes than any of its competitors. Since the preceding elections of November, 1946, it is true, the party has lost close to 500,000 voters, and its proportion of the total number of registered voters has declined from 21.6 to 20.1 per cent. Yet the Communist Party (CP) remains not only numerically, but also by virtue of its geographical distribution, the most important of the French parties. In none of the election districts did less than 5 per cent of the voters cast their ballot for the communist lists, while all other parties parade a considerable number of blank spots on the electoral map of France. In twenty-seven districts the CP can boast of a support larger than one-fourth of the total electorate, while the next strongest party, de Gaulles RPF, is similarly represented in only eleven districts. A comparison of the present communist vote with that of 1946 shows that five years which affected deeply the political constellation of Europe and the world have not changed significantly the distribution of communist sympathies among the French electorate. The greatest concentration of votes for the CP is still to be found in the region situated between Paris and the Belgian border, reaching in the East to the departements of Ardennes, Marne, and Aube, in the West to those of Somme and Seine-Inferieure.

Direct Democracy in France

When during the debate on a motion of censure in October 1962 Paul Reynaud challenged the government from the rostrum of the National Assembly with a scornful: “Here and nowhere else is France!”, the issue was well joined. To Reynaud, perennial deputy during three republican regimes, General de Gaulles projected referendum appeared as a two-fold attack upon French republican traditions. If adopted, the proposal to elect the President of the Republic by popular suffrage would divest the Assembly of its role as the sole bearer of national sovereignty. Moreover, to seek approval for such a change of the constitution of 1958 without a prior vote of parliament deprived both houses of any participation in the amending process. In 1958, as President of the Consultative Constitutional Committee, Reynaud had insisted that the possibilities of any direct appeal to the electorate be carefully circumscribed and hedged by parliamentary controls. He had obtained official assurances that the referendum would never be used by the executive as a means of arousing popular opinion against the elected assemblies. The final text of the constitution had incorporated proposals by the Consultative Committee which strengthened the position of parliament whenever either a referendum or presidential emergency powers might create a plebiscitarian situation.

The French Trade Associations and the Ratification of the Schuman Plan

A FEW months before the French National Assembly was to consider the ratification of the European Coal and Steel Treaty, a board member of the National Council of French Employers, the president of the Association of Engineering and Metal-processing Industries, wrote confidently: “This treaty, drafted as it is with the definite, though unavowed and hence shamefaced, intention of destroying the very principle of business representation, will be rejected by the French parliament. …” A year later, the treaty, ratified without any modification, had obtained force of law for the six participating countries and opened the way for the operation of the common market.

Book Reviews : Germany, Key to Peace. By JAMES P. WARBURG. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1953. Pp. xix, 344.

Appendix is one of the most valuable sections of the book. It contains statistical analyses concerning the size of the anti-Nazi opposition which are otherwise difficult to come by, and numerous documents of the Gestapo and other repressive authorities are reproduced in facsimile. Obviously, this is not the last word on a complex subject; it may be impossible ever to obtain a full factual picture, since much of the documentary material

4.75.) The Return of Germany. By NORBERT MUHLEN. (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company. 1953. Pp. 310.

to sample some of the best recent writing on the subject. Mr. Grove’s volume, the second under review, is a factual survey demonstrating the high degree of regional decentralization that has taken place in English government, initially because of wartime needs, and now apparently a permanent practice. Although the author confines himself to the area about Manchester, and reaches no conclusions concerning the extensive administrative developments he lists and describes, his work will be most useful to those pursuing research on the subject of administrative decentralization and regionalism, as well as to those dealing directly with these intermediate levels of public authority.

4.50.):

part, from Marshall and &dquo;marginalism&dquo;; as developments in economic theory they might be treated as such. Even Keynes, who criticized mar, ginal theory, employed it in his &dquo;General Theory.&dquo; A history of modern economic &dquo;theory,&dquo; as distinct from economic &dquo;thought,&dquo; is probably still to be written. The contribution of this latest revision lies in its succinct account of the modern economists, i.e., those since about 1920. Haney’s discussion of these is a necessary one, although students are generally familiar with all of the works he mentions. The actual organization of this knowledge and the presentation of it in a relatively comprehensive treatment represents a desirable addition to economic literature.

Book Reviews : Germany and the Future of Europe. Edited by HANS J. MORGENTHAU. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 1951. Pp. viii, 180.

In time of war the government has to mobilize the energies of the whole nation behind the common effort. The degree to which it succeeds in speeding up production determines the length, if not the outcome, of the armed conflict. In a war in which the existence of a free labor movement and the survival of democratic liberties are at stake, trade unions have to consider how they can render the maximum contribution to the national effort. The measure of their success in effectively protecting in time of war the interests of their members is indicative of labors strength and of the place it has acquired within the nation. Hence, common and mutual interests call for the most intimate collaboration between government and trade unions. Under a normally functioning democratic government this collaboration exists at all times. It has to be extended and intensified with the increase in importance which labor derives from war conditions. Throughout the first World War the collaboration between the French government and the trade union movement was most active and yielded important results in the