THE GOVERNING MEN OF THE CONTINENT.
CLEMENCEAU sanctions a statement in Justice that -CLIL• M. Grevy only succeeded in forming a Ministry without General Boulanger through a threat of resignation. The President informed Baron de Machu, his usual inter- mediary with Monarchists, that if the Right declined to support M. Itonvier, he should hand in his resignation, even though, in his judgment, that step would be followed by an imeine in the streets, and a military dictatorship. His ex- pressions have been perhaps exaggerated ; but there seems to be no doubt that the President—who, though represented in books as only seventy-four, is said to be older—feels the burden of his years, is troubled by his perfectly novel un- popularity with the populace, and almost despairs of making his constitutional theory of Republicanism succeed. He has been weighted with arduous responsibilities for nearly nine years, and is now suffering much, according to common report, from household troubles. He may resign at any time, and if he does, it will be most difficult to discover successor worthy of his great position. There is no marked figure left in France. There is no evidence that M. de Freycinet, the candidate with the best prospects, is equal to the first place, and his competitors would be all compara- tively obscure men,—many of them, perhaps, able and experi- enced, but none of them with any general hold on the nation, or possessed of that moral authority which inducee a great army to submit quietly to the authority of a civilian. Foreign nations, too, have a certain confidence in M. Grevy's sense. The Republic may have increased French happiness by opening careers to the lower grades of society, though the religious persecution and the frightful expenditure are heavy items on the other side ; but certainly it has failed to bring forward first-class men. There is not one except General Boulanger who attracts the attention of Europe, and his place among governing men is still to the last degree un- certain. He may be a genius, but he may also be only a Lafayette ; and the second supposition is more probable than the first. Certainly there is no one whom the voice of the nation would call to the Presidential Chair, or on whom any class of the people, soldiers included, can be said thoroughly to rely. With all careers free, and all distinctions of rank abolished, the electors of France find only ordinary men to represent them, and have as yet not sent up to the Chambers even a great- orator. There are good speakers in plenty, and one or two masters of rhetoric ; but there is no orator who can sway the Chamber by sheer eloquence, as Thiers, or even Gambetta so recently, could. Indeed, it has hitherto been a marked and quite inexplicable fact that the greatest orators have been bred in Chambers elected by limited suffrages, or even, as in Castelar's case, in countries where the electors are practically not free. The defect is attributed to the democratic re'geme, and it is true that it appears in most democratic countries. In the United States, a dominant leader only appears in a great crisis; and in England, the men whom the new electors appear to favour are of the smaller kind. Nobody on either side rivals Mr. Gladstone in intellectual stature, and Mr. Gladstone is not a product of to-day, but a survival from the past. The Irish, now entirely democratic, have but one considerable leader, and none of the minor States of Europe are ruled by men of whom history will take account. It is, however, by no means certain that democracy is the ultimate cause of the dearth of great individualities. The Monarchies are not producing them either. Prince Bismarck, it is true, still towers aloft ; but his shadow withers the aspirants over whom it falls. No one can name a great statesman in Germany except the one, and no one can affirm that any leader of Opposition would be a great statesman if he got the chance. The smaller States of the Federation produce no great Premiers, and the Federal Council might, for any contribution it makes to the intel- lectual reservoir, as well not exist. There is no coming man in Germany visible to the nation, nor is there in the Austrian Empire. The organisation of that great
Monarchy, with its jealous nationalities, and unsettled preju- dices of caste, and constantly conflicting theories of govern- ment—for Austria is neither federal nor unified—is unfavour- able to great civilians, who throughout its annals have been singularly rare. The men who now govern are either adroit Parliamentarians, like Herr Tisza, or diplomatists, like Count Kalnoky, or cool-headed managers with few scruples, much experience, and no originating power, like the Emperor himself. Austria is longing for a military organiser, but, with one of the greatest Armies in the world, she has not found one yet. In the Constitutional Monarchy of Italy, since the disappearance of the grand group of 1860, power has fallen to the King, who is an unknown quantity, to Signor Depretia, who is a great manager but no genius, and to a succession of capable but undistinguished administrators who have solved no problem, not even the wretched social and economic condition of the South. The governing group get along fairly well, and Italy, relieved by her vast emigration, is quiet and industrious; but there is no Cavour, or even Ricasoli, within her political borders. And, finally, in Russia the autocracy is palpably wielded by third-rate men who do not succeed in diplomacy, unless it be success to keep Europe always watchful, yet conclude no strong alliance, who allow the financial difficulty to increase until it threatens a catas- trophe, and who have neither crushed nor made terms with the revolutionary spectre. M. de Giers is the Czar's Private Secretary, and his master certainly does not succeed. Europe for the moment is without great men to guide her, and the Kings do not evoke genius any more than the masses.
If we believe that the tendency of the age is against the development of individual greatness, this state of affairs may appear natural enough ; but we see no sufficient reason for that impression. Every man, no doubt, begins to have an opinion, and government is therefore much more difficult ; but the masses show no reluctance to trust individuals with power. On the contrary, they rather exaggerate their claims. The Germans follow Prince Bismarck even when, as on many internal questions, they think him wrong ; the French masses evidently wished that Boulanger should prove a "necessary man ;" and the Russians elevated their favourite, Skobeleff—a great soldier, with a trace of the Slavic featherbrainedness in him—into a sort of War God. A poli- tician who could succeed, would be followed in England with as much devotion as was ever shown to leader ; and the Russians are eager to discover a ruler they could believe in. The want is not one of opportunity, but of men able to seize it, a want of greatness, and is quite as marked in literature and art as in political life. There is a tendency towards a high level, but not towards the development of unquestioned eminence. There is languor in the forces which produce men, a phenomenon often witnessed before, but striking because men have become at once so con- scious and so increasingly anxious to be efficiently led. It will probably pass, for we are all too impatient, and forget that a generation of great men is but just slipping away, Prince Bismarck and Mr. Gladstone being the survivors ; but it is not exhilarating to believe, as we are forced to believe, that the generation now passing maturity will probably reach old age without receiving the immense assistance which the world usually derives from the appearance of any ruling mind of the first order. If they also escape the appearance of any destructive spirit, they will have some compensation ; but in our time, unfortunately, the origin of wars is usually to be sought in popular enmities, and that of disorders in a general unreason sometimes little distinguishable from lunacy. The anarchical parties hitherto have not become anarchical through the intellectual dominance of any man.
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