The weeks which have just passed have been full of events, and each of them contains a lesson from which the left and far-left parties forming the majority of the Chamber must take advantage, if they want this legislature is truly fruitful and brings the essential reforms that the country expects and which are included in part in Edouard Herriot's ministerial declaration.

It is important, above all, to look the situation head on and in the light of events to take the necessary measures to ensure the total triumph of the Republic which will more than ever be the triumph of socialism.

Let us admit, first of all, that many of us were a little intoxicated by the victory of May 11 and also by the successes which followed from June 1 to 10, that is to say the election of Painlevé to the presidency of the Chamber and the fall of Millerand. On June 13, the election to the presidency of the Republic of Doumergue, who moreover is an excellent democrat and a very firm republican, with the help of right-wing votes, clearly appeared as a warning that there was a grain of sand in the machine which could, when moving towards the left, disrupt the entire mechanism.

Eight days had not passed when, following Herriot's magnificent profession of faith, Mr. Casimir-Justin de Selves was elected President of the Senate.

This time, it's clear.

It is not for the pleasure of ridiculing the High Assembly that the majority of the Senate elected to the presidency the improbable septuagenarian whose exploits at the Prefecture of the Seine and especially in Foreign Affairs are still in everyone's memory. No! The Senate wanted to make its position clear to the Republican Chamber. The Senate reminded us that it was in the majority on the right despite the fiction of the groups which led many to believe, under the reign of the National Bloc, that the Senate had a Republican majority.

Gertes, the gap between the two fractions of the High Assembly is minimal and the classification of some is often difficult, the fact remains that a government of social reforms and democratic progress will not be able to have in the Senate more from 130 to 135 unfailingly loyal votes, to which a significant number of floating votes could obviously be added which could, if necessary, constitute a majority.

But with a majority of this kind, it will be necessary to be cunning, it will often be necessary to attenuate its thinking, in a word it will not be possible to fully realize the left program that a compact, homogeneous and solid majority of more than 300 votes will hold. , in the room.

Because we must not hide it: it is to Herriot's clear and courageous declarations on the right to organize for civil servants, on amnesty, on the policy of recovery and financial balance, that the Senate responded under the form of Casimir-Justin de Selves.

So what is the lesson of these first three weeks which seem to weigh so heavily on the entire legislature? Tomorrow, if we are not careful, it will be the shady policy of concentration, it will once again be the reign of old cracked dishes which have been used too much, and, so often, served too poorly; it will be dissolution, perhaps, and, amid general disgust, the triumph of reaction or communism.

We must therefore react immediately and, instead of falling asleep in the tranquility of a victory that is contested, resume action to ensure definitive triumph.

And here, precisely, the left and far-left parties have at hand a powerful lever which will allow tomorrow, if we want to take the trouble, to change the face of things: in 10 months, the whole of France renews the municipal councils, that is to say the electors of the senators, who, in 1927, in 30 departments, will have to judge the men who undertook to have the High Assembly awarded the title again of the “obstructive Senate” that it once so fully deserved.

In the spring of 1925, we had to attack the municipalities whose decisive influence we now see in the destiny of the country. And if we know how to win, we will be able, in 1927, to overthrow the fragile majority of the friends of Mr. Casimir-Justin de Selves, by sending serious reinforcements to the 130 Republican senators who, on the question of the Vatican Embassy in 1921, recently on the vote on decree laws and the double decime and yesterday on the name of the honorable Mr. Bienvenu-Martin, saved the honor of the left.

And then, it may also be necessary to carry out a serious reshuffle in the prefectural staff quickly and without weakness. It is unacceptable for us to retain men who have made a pact with the National Bloc or who have become its passive accomplices. It is appropriate to remind certain representatives of the Republic that they are there to serve it and not to stab it in the back. If this operation is carried out, it is extremely probable that future senatorial elections will bear its mark.