TOPICS OF THE DAY.
M. BUFFET'S DECLARATION.
THE declaration of lffinisterial principles which M. Buffet put forth yesterday week has caused a dissatisfaction which has since grown almost into disloyalty and alarm among the Republican party who carried 'him into power. The reason of this is not far to seek. Its tone is not merely Conservative, which was in every sense desirable, but apparently Conservative almost in the Bonapartist, as distinguished from the Republican sense ; and this is pre- cisely the tone which was, of all tones, least expected from a Ministry formed to avoid the imminent danger gf an Imperialist restoration. In the first place, M. Buffet represented the im- niediate danger of the moment as a danger likely to arise rather from the Red Spectre,—in other Words, the Socialistic party,—than from the Violet. It is necessary, above all, to put an end to the ambiguity,"—the ambiguity, namely, as to the solidity of the existing social order which was due to the long hesitation of the Assembly on Constitutional points,—" and to penetrate every commune in France with the conviction that respectable, peaceable, and orderly people attached to order by their sentiments and interests, have the Government on their side, and that they can count on us to protect them against the,attacks of subversive passions." This emphatic declaration that the nevi Government is as much a Government of Com- bat is ever, and a Government of Combat against the very foes' whose formidableness was so much exaggerated on M. Thiers's fall in 1873, naturally alarmed the party which had placed it in power expressly for the purpose of com- batting a different foe,—the Bonapartists whose widely-rami- fied organisation is spread all over the Departments, and who have powerful secret friends in more than half the Prefectures of France. And the character of this declaration was the more irritating from the sentence which followed it, and in which M. Buffet says to France :—" We shall be seconded, moreover, we do not aoubt, in this task, by an intelligent and devoted Administration which has been equal to the maintenance of order in the difficult circumstances we have encountered, and which may rely on our constant support." Now the very secret of the alarm of the last few weeks has been the distrust felt of this "'intelligent and devoted Administration," where, as every one knows, Imperialist sympathies are only too rampant. Nor will the distrust be the less because M. Buffet occupies the post of Minister of the Interior, instead of M d'Audiffret-Pasquier, whose well-hewn hostility to Bona- partism and great ability rendered him, in Constitutionalists' eyes,
particularly well adapted for the duty of weeding and reorganising the Prefecturate of France. M. Buffet was not, it is true, one of the late Emperor's devoted servants. Long opposed to the Empire he became its Minister only on the occasion of the tardy Empire, experiment made by Louis Napoleon in
his last few years, and even then M. Buffet was not able to remain. But, nevertheless, he has been a servant of the Empire. He might very easily believe that a Constitutional Empire was again possible, and would be a better security for order than a Constitutional Republic ; and his antecedents therefore give no one full confidence that he will attack the Adminis- trative problem in a sense hostile to the Imperialist party. The declarations made against a policy of "rancour," are again all interpreted in the same sense. "In France," declared M. Buffet, "where changes of institutions and dynasties have been so frequent, and where each of these destructions (±chacune de ces destructions') has left in the hearts of a great number of good citizens regrets and convictions worthy of respect, so far as they do not manifest themselves in any reprehen- sible manner, any other principle" [than that of concilia- tion] "would be conformable neither to justice nor to good policy." No doubt. But no party ever dreamt of desiring that the private wishes and sympathies of any dynastic sect should be persecuted. What the Republicans did earnestly wish was that the public security should be placed in the care rather of men who prefer the cause which has nominally triumphed, than of men who prefer the cause which is by far its most powerful rival. M. John Lemoinne, in descanting on the alarm with which the high provincial organisation of the Bonapartists, and their known disinclination to resign administrative posts out of any honourable scruple, has filled the Republicans, illustrates the position with his own peculiar power of irony,when he reminds his readers of a Judge who, at the opening of an unpleasant part of some trial, desired all respectable women to withdraw, and then, after a very few had left the Court, added, "Now that the respectable women have gone away, let all the rest be turned out." M. John Lanai:Anne would like to have seen the sanie. Course pursued with the Imperialist Prefects ; after the honourable men, the men with scruples, had abandoned the service of a regime they emidemned, he would like to have 'seen the others diaridated, if only for not' having the scruples which had led-to34. iesigba-
tion of theIciiiner. • And that is precisely the' criticiiim which most happily expresses' the anxiety caused by M. "Buffet's
declaration of • principles. It praises a profeaSedly dis- trusted administrative .Service. It promises generous con- ciliation where no one wished to see a policy of rancour.' But the whole Republican party did wish to see a ,policy of precaution, and of :this M. Buffet gives no hint. II declares war against the Red Spectre, as if it were the Reif Spectre which, at the present *rant., most haunts the ?Shoe at Versailles, and overcomeaVgy the horror it excites, the mutual repulsions of 'Orleanist and Republican, of Constitutionalist and Radical. Add -Wall this M.-'• Btiffet's demand for delay in putting an end to the state of siege, and the vagne request made for 'a stringent Press law, and we do not at all *Oder that IL Buffet's statement of the principles of his Govetiiiiient has- spread' a disappointment akin almost to dismay 'ariiiInag the
party Which raitied the `new Cabinet to power. -
At the same time, we cannot at all admit that We' ground for anxiety is as serious as many of the Republica nS in their natural disappointment represent it. M. Dufaure,'M. L6ors Say, and M. Wallon are' not exactly Liberils,- They are. republicans almost of the highest type 0f-08{4er:444i Consist- ent with honest Constitutionalism and with their belief that a 'Republic is the true solution of the Constitutional problem for France • but they are not men to be made the toOls of an Imperialist reaction, and they are precisely the kind of men Who will see -that their influence with the worthy but tenacious and not liery clear-headed President of the Republic, will be greatly increased by their putting a much' more Conservative face on the Government than the' action they intend to take would in itself require. Marshal MacMahon has unfortunately committed himself again and again :with the most blundering persistency to a highly Con- servative policy. He has been persuaded to accept a definitive Republic at all only on the assurance that it is in the strictest sense a Conservative policy to do so, and he would have thrown everything into chaos by resigning, if he could not have found a Republican Administration Willing to accept the ultra-Conservative programme to which he had committed himself. We suspect that he regards himself as pledged to keep order first, but next, to hold the balance between the-. different parties in the country ; and that it is only on tlie faith that it was essential to the cause of order'th sanction' the Republic that he consented to that step, as he would have consented in like manner to the accession of Henri V. two years ago, if the Assembly had voted him to the Throne. Assumingthis state of mind in the Marshal,—and we are told; on apparently high authority, that one of the moderate Repub- licans found him on a recent occasion almost in tears at the con- cessions, contrary as he thought to the general drift of his pledges,, which the Left Centre were extorting from him,—it may well be that the Republicans find it first of all necessary rather to alarm their own friends at the apparently reactionary character of their policy, than to throw everything into confusion by frightening the President into resignation ; and they probably hold that they can do more administratively to secure the Republic, while talking the language of the Right, than they could possibly effect if they used the dialect of their own party. Whatever dangers Imperialism may still threaten to the country, clearly with an Administration in power which con- tains three determined Republicans, it cannot threaten so much danger as it has done for the last three years with an Administration headed by men who were known to lean to the most unpopular of all Monarchies. If during that time the Imperialists have not found their opportunity, there is no reason to fear they will find it now, with a more settled Constitution, and statesmen at least more popular than their predecessors at the head of the Government. In the mean- time, every day brings nearer that appeal to the Constitu- encies which will give France the opportunity of declaring her real political faith,—after which the Bonapartist cause should be paralysed, unless it be so truly popular as to obtain what is exceedingly unlikely, a triumph at the polls. Add that M. Buffet has been succeeded as President of the Assembly by a most able and determined foe of the Bonapartist regime, the Due d'Audiffret-Pasquier, and that his election will go a great way in giving new weight to the c,ounsels of the most powerful adversaries of Bonapartism, and we may safely assert that the cause of the Republic, clouded though it may still be, has never been so hopeful in France as it now is. It has been accepted by virtue of ,sheer necessity by its sworn foes. It has engaged the honour of Marshal MacMahon in its behalf. It has laid down the modus operandi by virtue of which it will be nece-ssary within a very limited period to take all the constituencies of Franco into eounsel as to the future. And even though the Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior who is to make that appeal e., no more Liberal than M. Buffet, he will hardly be mora likely to sanceed in forcing the hand of France than the Duo de $roglie,. and .will not have so strong a Motive for forcing it in any one sense. Every step in the history of the last two years since ,M 'niers fell from power has been a step gained. First came the collapse of the attempt to foist Henry V. on reluctant France ; then came election„ after election, showing that the Empire was the only substantial, foe the Republic had to dread, and that it became more and more substantial exactly in proportion as the, Assembly's fear of the Republic became more and more visible to France, and less and less substantial exactly in proportion as the Aasenably seemed. incliaed to give way, and accept the Republic as inevitable. Now, at last, that decision has been gravely taken. The President himself, the first soldier in France, has taken the Republic under, his protection till November, 1880. The Ministry has been so modified as to challenge from the Conservatives no less than from the Liberals of the country, a vote of confidence in the Republic. If the Imperialists conspire, they must conspire like other conspirators, , not on behalf of the people, but against authorities at last committed to an early appeal to the people. Hence, if the Left can but sustain the reticence and moderation they have so long displayed, the crisis is already passed ; and though it may prove,—we sin- cerely hope it will prove,—that the Radicals may gain but a very small proportion of the seats in the next Assembly,—any other result would threaten panic and reaction,—the Legitimists, Imperialists, and even Orleanists will probably lose all party organisation in the next Assembly. For such a result as that it is quite worth while to endure a good many programmes even less satisfactory in their immediate ring than that read by M. Buffet last Friday week to a disappointed and somewhat perplexed Assembly.
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