FRANCE: Leather Seats’ Budgets

To preserve the seats of their trousers as long as possible, French bureaucrats sit on round pieces of leather, are known derisively as les ronds-de-cuir. Cozily last week they closed the books on the French Budget of 1916, obtained the Senate’s approval for their final audit which showed a deficit of 22 billion (old style) francs or 110 billion present-day gold francs. When a Senator protested at the ronds-de-cuir delay, Finance Minister Louis Germain-Martin hotly assured him that a mighty reform is under way which will permit all French budgets to be closed by 1937. Almost ready to be closed are those for 1918 and 1925 but all others since the War are still wide open.