VIOLENT SCENE IN THE FRENCH CHAMBER. COMMUNIST UPROAR.

FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT. PARIS, Tuesday.

Political passions were at fever heat in the French Chamber this afternoon, and the result was a scene of extraordinary tumult. For three-quarters of an hour cries and counter-cries were flung across the assembly, desks were slammed, the president’s bell clanged, and finally the disorder reached its culminating point when the Extreme Left broke into the Socialist hymn, the “Internationale”, to which other parts of the House responded with the “Marseillaise.” At this moment the president, totally powerless to make himself heard, seized his top-hat, put it on as a sign that the sitting was suspended, and left the Chamber. The cause of it all was three Communist interpellations demanding the immediate liberation of Marty and Badina, the two French sailors who, although in prison for having mutinied while serving in the Black Sea fleet against the Bolsheviks after the armistice, have both recently been elected to the Paris Municipal Council. Marcel Cachin, the Communist leader, refusing to accept the demand of the Acting Prime Minister, M. Bonnevay, who is also Minister of Justice, that the interpellation should be postponed, gave a start to the uproar. Marty and Badina, he said, were imprisoned unjustly; ordinary criminals were amnestied, but there was no pardon for “the best and most worthy among Frenchmen, the purest heroes that the country knows.”

Amid calls to order from the president and noisy protests from the majority of the House, M. Cochin declared that if the Chamber supported the Government its vote would be an outrage to universal suffrage, to justice, and to humanity. He was followed at the tribune by another Communist, M. André Berthon, who declared that the war against which Marty had protested and been imprisoned in consequence was a criminal war, and that “the people who ought to be tried by the High Court for high treason are in the councils of the Government and at the Elysée.”

Called to order and warned that something more serious was hanging over his head, M. Berthon added, amid redoubled noise, that “all the Ministers seated on these benches are criminals.” “I propose that you be censured,” the president declared amid applause, and called upon M. Berthon to justify his statement. This the latter did by declaring that after the armistice French troops had been sent to Russia, had fired upon defenceless inhabitants, and had established a blockade, all of which constituted measures of war; according to the Constitution there could not be war without a decision on the part of Parliament, and, consequently, from the legal point of view, the Ministers and the President of the Republic, who had assumed the responsibility for these acts, had committed the crime of high treason, and that they were, therefore, criminals.

Amid prolonged uproar, M. Cachin demanded that he and his friends should also be censured, while M. Léon Blum declared that if the censure were applied it would constitute an act of political reprisals unworthy of the Chamber. The Deputies who had been getting more and more excited, voted the censure by a large majority, whereupon to the general noise was added the singing of the “Internationale” by the Extreme Left, covered almost immediately by the “Marseillaise” from the rest of the House. In the midst of the uproar the president left his seat, and the sitting was suspended.

VOTE OF CENSURE

When the sitting was resumed half an hour later M. Bonnevay again tried to postpone discussion about Badin and Marty, but M. Lafont, another member of the Extreme Left, insisted on using practically the same language about “the criminal war” as M. Berthon. He, too, was threatened with a censure, and in defending himself he spoke amid much noise of “the crime committed by the President of the Republic.” Asked by the President whether he maintained his epithet of “criminal,” which he had applied to the Government and to the President of the Republic, he declared that he did, and a vote of censure excluding him temporarily from the Chamber was passed by a large majority. After more noisy discussion as to whether the interpellations should be postponed, it was decided to do so, and the sitting was brought to an end.