All France For Increase.

New York Times 100 years ago today, March 9, 1913:
Except Socialist Leaders, Who Fail to Gauge the Popular Temper.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
    PARIS, March 8.— As was to be expected, the Socialists are showing a virulent opposition to a reversion to the three years' service system, which they characterize as a reaction.
    Already M. Jaurès and his cohorts have given a foretaste of their uncompromising attitude toward the Government Army bills by saying that whoever fathered such measures would get little sympathy from the Socialists. That back of the measures should now stand M. Briand, their former apostle, only serves to heighten their fury.
    That their violent opposition will be unavailing, however, seems certain thanks in no small measure to the pronouncement in favor of three years' service made by Dr. Georges Clemenceau, which will exert a powerful influence on his political friends. Besides his declaration in favor of the three years' service, Dr. Clemenceau said:
    "Some people may say that Parliament will make a humiliating confession that it made a mistake if it abrogates the two years' law, but there can he no question of humiliation when the country's salvation is at stake. I would cheerfully confess mistakes all day long where the safety of France is concerned.
    "I discussed this question with a certain friend last week. He was then strongly against the re-establishment of the three years' service. Since then he has been to his constituency and has come back to tell me that he finds the peasants quite ready to agree to make the sacrifice." Nothing could better be calculated to restore to Dr. Clemenceau the public esteem which he forfeited by his opposition to President Poincaré's election than this pronouncement, which Le Temps describes as a noble and magnificent appeal from a man who incarnated the dignity of France at the time of the Casablanca dispute with Germany.
    The expressions of opinion, which some newspapers have gathered from various parts of the country, support the belief of Paris that the provinces are not going to lag behind the capital in expressions of loyalty and devotion to the republic at the present critical moment. Le Temps's investigator in the great industrial centres of the Loire Department found coal miners, iron workers, and factory hands ready to follow the German Socialists' example of self-sacrificing patriotism.
    Such a feeling naturally raises doubts as to whether the Socialist Deputies in the Chamber are representing the views of their electors in opposing the Three Years' bill. It has been apparent to all observers that syndicalism is a declining factor in French industrial life just now. All over France strikes have been conspicuously few among the army of workers, who were once supposed to be among the most anti-militarist in the world.
    Indeed, there seems every justification for the conclusion that the antagonistic attitude which the Socialist leaders have taken in regard to the military bills is resented by the workers as a whole.
    René Bazin, the Academician and well-known author, in discussing the present state of affairs with The New York Times correspondent, says that the way France is now answering the call for sacrifices shows that she is a noble nation and her enemies are greatly mistaken in thinking that she would be mown down.
    "Neither her faults, her revolutions, nor the power of her enemies have killed France," he says. "She has al ways had national revivals, some of them miraculous, because she has a mission in the world. Believe me, the present revival is deep down in the souls of the people."

    PARIS, March 8.—The willingness of young Frenchmen to join the Army in what is thought a national crisis has been shown by the thousands of volunteers who have applied at the recruiting offices in every part of the country to serve a term of three years.
    Eugene Etienne, Minister for War, commenting on this fact, says the offers have come from every class of society. Every pupil in the two upper classes of the high school at Avignon has sent a letter to M. Etienne assuring the Minister of his readiness to stay in the ranks for three years. The recruits at Pontoise cheered loudly when the Prefect of the department referred during a speech to the three years' service.
    Deputy P. Jacquier brought forward a proposition in the Chamber of Deputies to raise the $100,000,000 asked for by the Government for additions to the French armaments by imposing an extra tax on incomes. Those above $2,000, he said, should be taxed heavily, when there were no children in the family, while where there were children the tax should be decreased in proportion to their number.
    Deputy Paul Pugliesi-Conti brought forward an amendment to the bill, proposing to lay a tax of $25 on every foreigner working in France.