As regarded the Electoral Reform Bill, the antagonism between the two Houses was equally acute. The Senate Committee rejected the Government measure by a large majority, and the pending general election seemed likely to be still conducted under the system which so many competent observers had condemned, without, however, agreeing on a substitute. In view of this eventuality the parties were already defining their attitudes. At the end of January the Socialists met in Congress at Amiens. They declared themselves against the revival of the former Combist _bloc_ (A.R., 1902, p. 264; 1904, p. 253) and decided that the Unified Socialists should put forward candidates in every constituency, in order to ascertain the numbers of their adherents. The programme to be laid before the electors was to contain in any case three essential articles: (1) "opposition to militarist and capitalist imperialism," _i.e._ immediate repeal of the law enacting three years' military service; (2) a Franco-German understanding; (3) the maintenance of the secular character of the schools. Should a second ballot be necessary, the Executive Committee of the party left the Departmental Federations to decide whether agreements should be entered into with the middle-class Republican parties, but these latter must be required to adopt the three obligatory articles stated above. The Committees of the Right, on their part, proposed to organise, under the name of a national inquiry, what really amounted to a _plébiscite_ on the method of election to the Chamber. M. B. Pugliesi-Conti invited that House to do this (Jan. 30); M. Jaurès caused general surprise by supporting him. The motion was opposed by the Prime Minister and by M. Briand, and rejected by 389 to 164. An incidental feature of the debates in this first period was the prominence of military and colonial questions. Thus on January 28 the Chamber had unanimously voted the loan of 230,000,000 francs for the Morocco Protectorate. Public opinion, again, was so strongly manifested against the intention ascribed to the Russian Putiloff Company of placing itself under the control of Krupps in order to increase its capital, that the French Government intervened to prevent the German firm from becoming concerned in the manufacture of artillery for Russia. Finally, throughout France the keenest attention was directed to the discussion in the Senate on the interpellation on military aeronautics supported by the Senator representing the Department of the Loire, Dr. Emile Reymond, an eminent surgeon and a noted airman (Jan. 23, 27, 30). The serious defects indicated by the various speakers were admitted by the War Minister, M. Noulens, who formally promised to remedy them. As a security that this should be done, the Senate passed a resolution regretting the faults of organisation existing in this service, and expressing confidence that the War Minister would effect the necessary reforms by giving it autonomy.