THE SITUATION IN PARIS. T HE vote of the French Chamber
on the Anarchist Press Bill will not reach us in time for record, but whichever way it goes, it will not affect the seriousness of the new situation in Paris. The deep cleavage between the parties, which it was hoped had been filled up by the Papal manifesto, has reappeared, and the Conservatives are finding allies so numerous and so powerful, that, as M. Magnard admits in the Figaro, the Republic itself, and not this or that Government, may be found to be in danger. The whole Conservative party has been shocked by the violence of the late Labour revolt, and its conse- quence, the dynamite explosion ; and both its divisions agree in attributing the danger they foresee to the conduct of the Liberal Government. The religious division, whose mouthpiece is the Comte de Mun, sees in those incidents the natural result of irreligion, and declares openly and in full Chamber that the Government is but reaping what it has sown. Its single object is to make Frenchmen atheists, and atheists of necessity seek to make this life happy, as it is their only one, and find in the plunder of those who possess anything the swiftest road to their end. Clearly no peace is possible with such a Government, and to help it even in carrying so reasonable a proposal as a Bill against the Anarchist Press, is futile. The evil, say the religious, lies deeper, in the central policy and per- manent tone of the Government itself. This division, though weakened by the decree of the Pope that the Republic must be accepted, is still powerful with a section of the population, including a large majority of all women ; and it is in full accord with the second or secular division of Conservatism which, while agreeing in the condemnation of irreligion, hates the Government mainly for its " weak- ness " in dealing with the question of property. There are immense numbers of men in France whose war-cry, if they told the whole truth about themselves, would be " Dieu et mes rentes." This division, it is clear, is gaining recruits every day. The whole body of the bourgeoisie, all property- holders, all employers of labour, all who are Conservatives by instinct, and probably—though from their habitual silence this is not yet certain—a large proportion of the peasantry, are beginning to swell its ranks, and to demand stronger and more repressive government. They have been frightened by two facts, one well understood here, namely, the " uprising of Labour," with its tendency to use dynamite, and the other, much less understood, namely, the willingness of the political Radicals to make terms with the Labour leaders. They see that M. Clemenceau, formerly only a Radical, has thrown himself among the Socialists ; has advocated the most extreme proposals from Carmaux, including the liberation of the miners convicted of outrage ; and has threatened the Government if it ventures to repress dis- orderly meetings ; and they expect a general attack on property to be made by all the coalesced forces favourable to revolution. M. Clemenceau, they say, is at once a keen and a selfish man ; and if he believes that the Socialists will rule the future, we may be sure that a grand attack on property is not far off. So deep is the alarm, that had any Monarchical party a man to produce, in whose ability the country had any confidence, the danger to the Republic would be imminent ; but as it is, they de- mand a strong man—almost sure to be M. Constans- and, if necessary. new laws through which he may exer- cise " for the protection of society " some kind of a dictatorship. It is impossible to estimate the numbers of this division of the Conservatives, because, as we have said, the peasants only speak through the ballot-box, at a General Election, or in a ple'biscile ; but it has repeatedly, with the help of the religious division, ruled France, and the signs show that under the influence of panic it is growing powerful again. It is strong even in the Chamber, always more Radical than the country, because the candidates who are preferred chiefly consist of the less successful and therefore embittered professionals ; and it way be far stronger among the constituencies, where the alarm created by any Red movement in Paris is usually disproportionate to the alarm in Paris itself. The Army, too, is not likely to be less conservative than the bulk of society ; and if the Army grows excited, or alarmed, or irritated, the conservative parties have an irresistible weapon in their hands.
The Government meets the new outburst without much wisdom. It could, to begin with, detach the religious party from the opposing force. It has only to give up, or even suspend, its persecuting practice, or, as M. de Frey- cinet would describe it, its "policy of laicising the State," a policy which at all events involves the steady dis- couragement, by the whole force of the great machine, of religious education. M. de Mun, who, it must be remembered, abandoned Monarchy avowedly in deference to the Pope, in his speech of Wednesday, which so en- chained the Chamber, distinctly offered, if this were done, to support alike the Republic and its existing Government, but M. Loubet refused the offer. He would not, he declared, allow it to be said that the Government was in any degree a Government of persecution, or one which favoured disbelief. He, in fact, resists both the religious and the secular Conservative divisions. He tells the former that the Government is not atheistic, but only " neutral," and that it will never shrink from that position. This statement is merely a play upon words, the neutrality of the Government consisting in enforcing " neutrality" on all whom it controls,—that is, in insisting that nobody shall teach, embody in symbols, or act on any religious ideas. In theory that may be neutrality, but in practice it is persecution. Silence on religion means, in France, the propagation of irreligion, the body of the people knowing only those two alternatives ; and a "neu- trality " which enforces it, is exactly equivalent to the neutrality of the man who insists that two boys shall fight fair, and, therefore, that one of them must be handcuffed. M. Loubet will not secure one religious Conservative by that argument, while the secular Conservatives regard his offers with disdain. They look upon his demand of a Press Law against Anarchical newspapers as a subterfuge. What is the use, they say, of suppressing trumpery prints, when every workman may proclaim war to the rich, when every mob may sing the " Carmagnole," and when Deputies, protected from arrest by their scarfs, go down to districts in " insurrection " to promise that Government shall grant all their demands ? It is probable that M. Loubet means to be fair, even judicially fair ; but French secular Conservatives, with a dynamite explosion still ringing in their ears, are not content with fairness. They want support from the Government, or, as they phrase it, active protection for the well-disposed. They know that the French Executive is armoured in statutes intended to strengthen its prerogatives, and they ask impatiently why they are not used ; why, for example, meetings palpably Anarchical are not dispersed by force ? They want, in fact, as against Anarchy, and, we fear, against a good deal of the Labour movement, a Govern- ment which, though Republican in its form, shall be Imperial in its tendency and its methods. They will be permanently content with nothing less, and if not gratified at once, will certainly make a desperate effort at the elections which occur next year.
In the absence of further Anarchist outbreaks, which might drive Paris into anything, the policy to be pursued will rest, of course, with the peasant voters, and their view is one which it is nearly impossible to gather. The religious argument probably does not affect them much. They may not be as irreligious as their representatives, and, in fact, are not, for the representatives only represent the majority which may not at the ballot be thinking of religion at all ; but the Deputies must know their own business, and it is impossible that " laicising" could go on as it does if the country voters seriously resented it. They tolerate the policy at all events, and send up men who delight in it, but the feeling about property may be much more acute. It has always reigned in France, except during the short period—not five years—covered by the great transfer of land under confiscation and forced sales, and nothing has occurred to create a presump- tion that it has diminished. If, therefore, the serious alarm which is undoubtedly felt in Paris, and is re- flected in all journals, extends to the Departments, we should expect, first, a warning to the Deputies, which would be fatal to M. Loubet's Government, and next, the election of men pledged, if the Labour movement grows violent, to maintain order by repression. They will not be Monarchists, for the peasantry are sick of revolutions, and believe, after the experience of a generation, in the power of their own votes ; but they will be ready to vote for men who will, under Republican forms, support repres- sion and government through decrees by the Ministry of the Interior. That is the most moderate form the Reaction can take, and it is the Reaction which, as far as outsiders can judge, is on its way in France, though it may pause a little in the absence of terrifying events.
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