By acquiring the Chemin de Fer de l'Ouest and combining it with other Government railways, the Ministry made the first important step towards nationalisation of railways. Clemenceau defended this measure on grounds that would be, and were, accepted by Socialists; but events have shown in this particular case that a good deal more is needed than the establishment of another department of State bureaucracy to render the railways a national property really beneficial to the community. As carried out in practice, the acquisition of the Chemin de Fer de l'Ouest has rather set back than advanced the general policy of railway nationalisation in France. A more important measure was that introduced by M. Caillaux and, amazing to say, passed through the Assembly, for a graduated income-tax. How this majority was obtained has always been one of the puzzles of that period. There is no country in the world where a tax upon incomes is more unpopular than in France, and from that day to this, in spite of the desperate need for funds which has arisen, this tax has never yet become law. But it was a genuine financial reform and creditable to the Government. The Socialists supported it, though in itself it is only a palliative measure of justice in purely bourgeois finance. From this period dates the close alliance between the Socialists as revolutionaries and M. Caillaux as the adventurous financier and director of the Société Générale, which later produced such strange results in French politics, and intensified Socialist hatred for M. Clemenceau. But at this time M. Caillaux, with the full concurrence and support of the Prime Minister, was attacking all the bourgeois interests in their tenderest place. The wonder is that such a policy did not involve the immediate fall of the Ministry. Quite possibly, had Clemenceau remained in office, it might have become a permanent feature in French finance. Boldness and boldness and boldness again is sometimes as successful in politics as it is in oratory. Although, therefore, to attack pecuniary "interests" of a large section of the nation is a far more hazardous enterprise than to denounce eminent persons or to overthrow Ministries, this move might then have been successful if well followed up. On March 8th, in this year 1909, Clemenceau unveiled a statue to the Radical Minister Floquet, with whom he had worked for many years. The revolutionary Socialists announced their intention of demonstrating against him on this occasion. They objected to him and his administration on account of the expedition to Morocco--in which Clemenceau had certainly run counter to all his previous policy on colonial affairs--on account of cosmopolitan finance, Russian loans and the shooting down of workmen on strike. It was the last that occasioned the bitterest feeling against him, and this was really not surprising.