THE SITUATION IN FRANCE.
TWO views of the present situation in France have been published in London this week, which, taken together, have much instruction in them. One is by M. Gabriel Monod, the French Protestant, whose calm and well- informed criticism, alike of French politics and French literature, has for years delighted the readers of the Con- temporary Review ; the other, which appears in the Fortnightly, is by Mr. W. H. Hurlbert, the American Catholic, who recently published a most enlightening book on the condition of Ireland. Both write on the recent elections, and though differing radically in their points of view, at times approach one another in their conclusions. M. Monod, who is a sincere Republican with an Opportunist bias, is greatly delighted with the Republican victory, and is inclined to deny that it was due in any degree to official pressure ; but he admits that the Minister of the Interior, M. Constans, is " not too scrupulous," and has had the " misfortune to grow rich in office ;" he deplores the fact that the new Chamber, like the old, will have no consider- able leader, and he is obviously, though most reluctantly, impressed with the idea that the group system will con- tinue, and that the new representative body, full though it be of untried men, may be no improvement on the old. " As to the Republicans themselves," says M. Monod, " their position is far from being easy. Out of about 366 Deputies there are scarcely more than 250 who belong to the really moderate section of the party. If they could count on the support of some fifty members of the Right, they might at a pinch carry on the Government without the help of the Radicals ; but those fifty votes will not be to be had unless the Ministry is formed from among the most moderate of the Moderates, and this may drive the somewhat more advanced into the arms of the Radicals. It is therefore almost certain that the attempt will be made to form a majority which shall include the fifty Members of the Left Centre, the two hundred Moderate Republicans, and some fifty of the less violent Radicals. And thus we fall again into that policy of concessions to the Radicals which has already worked so much injury to the Republic, a policy of Parliamentary helplessness and inaction, and of Governmental instability. So that what, at first sight, seems likeliest to happen, is just the continuation of that state of things with which we were only too familiar in the last Chamber In the absence of leadership, it is much to be feared that the Parliamentary groups will be reconstituted as before ; for these groups are a very con- venient organisation for those who wish to be Ministers, or to exercise an influence on the Ministers. The Radicals, for instance, would be swamped in a compact Republican majority ; but, by forming a group apart, they become a power which has to be reckoned with. Their votes are abso- lutely necessary ; and they are bought with a portfolio or a place." Mr. Hurlbert agrees with these statements, without, of course, having heard them, but draws from them a much more sinister conclusion. He is convinced that the existence of these groups, and, in fact, the whole character of the new Chamber, in which probably fifty of the Republicans Owe their seats to deliberate falsification of the returns, will involve the continuance of the present system of extravagance, which threatens, as he believes, in the near future nothing less than the bankruptcy of the French Treasury. We shall discuss that probability afterwards ; but Mr. Hurlbert has taken great pains to verify his statistics ; he has had the assistance of M. Welche, "formerly a Cabinet Minister and Prefect of the great Department of the Nord," and his conclusions agree substantially with those of M. Leroy-Beaulieu, the well- known editor of the Econamiste, whom the Ministry made every exertion to defeat, and did defeat, as Mr. Hurlbert on much evidence believes, by illegal means, for fear he should in the Chamber expose too clearly the condition of the finances. The figures are positively astounding. The Republicans have allowed every kind of expenditure to increase, not only on the Army and Public Works, but in the cost of the Civil Service, which in 1853 was £7,188,000 a year, and in 1870, the last year of the Empire, £9,990,000, but in 1888 had risen to £16,160,000, partly, we imagine, owing to the enormous increase in lay-school teaching. Be that as it may, the total expenditure, ordinary and extraordinary, in 1876, under Marshal MacMahon, was £100,820,000 ; and the Budget for 1890, framed before the elections, and in presence of an outcry for economy, was: Ordinary expenditure ... ... 4121,462,600 Extraordinary ... ... 19,959,100 4141,421,700 This is fifty-four millions sterling more than the expenditure in England. The revenue in the same Budget is calculated at £120,478,900, leaving a deficit of £20,942,800. This, moreover, is not an accident, but an event of regular recurrence, M. Leroy-Beaulieu himself calculating the habitual " deficit " of the Republic—by which we mean the disparity between outlay and receipts—at £20,000,000 a year. This enormous deficit occurs, moreover, in spite of a great increase in taxation, which is now calculated by the Republican officials themselves at 104 fr. a head, or £4 3s. 6d., against 57 fr. (.22 5s. 10d.) a head in Eng- land, the next most heavily taxed country in Europe. Mr. Hurlbert, who evidently detests the Republic on account of its religious persecutions, believes that, as the late Chamber refused large reductions, and the new Chamber must also refuse them, or incur opposition from the vested interests of the most venomous kind, this state of affairs must ultimately lead to bankruptcy ; but that is an exaggeration. There will be no bankruptcy in France. The shock caused by the Treasury failing to fulfil its obliga- tions would be so tremendous, and the consequent revolu- tion so sweeping, that long before it occurs, the national property—which is enormous, including as it does all railways and most forests—will be sold, and the ex- penditure cut down with revolutionary vigour. The taxation, too, though cruelly heavy, is probably not so exhausting as it was in England in the later years of the Great War, when it is believed by econo- mists like the late Right Hon. James Wilson, that every man paid 7s. 6d. to the State out of every pound he earned or possessed ; and there are certain alleviations to be reckoned. The weight of the tax on transfers, for instance, seems cruel, but much of it is paid in England to lawyers instead of the State, and the French Government makes much—e.g., by the tobacco monopoly—which in freer countries goes to enrich the merchants and traders of the community. There will be ncr bankruptcy, nor will the taxation crush France ; but we do think there is danger, with these ruinous deficits, and the incessant demand for loans to extinguish them-440,000,000, for instance, must be raised within the next six months—that the industry of France will be over-mortgaged, and that a financial panic will set in, producing results certainly fatal to the existing methods of administration, and probably dangerous to the Republic itself. The peasantry, though willing to pay for an immense Army, and puzzled by the public works which they approve without calculating their cost, are extremely sensitive as to total outlay and taxation, and visit their own financial discontent directly on the Government. M. Monod gives an instance of this spirit which, supposing him to be as accurate as he usually is, is almost comical in its completeness. " A Government is popular or unpopular according as things go well or ill. From 1881 to 1885 the Republicans were losing ground. Why largely on account of a commercial crisis which affected the whole of Europe, bad harvests, and the phylloxera. In 1889, on the contrary, we find business recovering its tone ; the amendment began two years ago, and promises steady progress ; we have had a splendid season, and the difference between the harvest of 1888 and that of 1889 is estimated at little under a milliard. So great is the influence of these agricultural phenomena, in which the Government certainly can claim no part, that in Calvados, where the yield of apples has completely failed this year, none but Conservatives have been elected; while in the Seine Inftfrieure, where there has been a capital harvest of corn and colza, the candidates returned are almost all Republican." We look, therefore, for increasing discontent in France, which will greatly increase the force on the one side of the Reactionaries, and on the other of the extreme Reds.
But cannot the Chamber enforce the needful reductions? Yes ; if it has the energy and the patriotism. Only last year the Right proposed before the Committee of the Budget to reduce expenses by £12,600,000 a year, and economists believe that it might be possible, if not to reduce taxation, at least to balance the Budget, and so arrest the perpetual growth of the Debt. But then, will the Chamber do it ? That is exceedingly doubtful. There may be strong men among those newly elected, and all Deputies have received a caution, the enormous number of dismissals among candidates being due essentially to the popular anger at extravagance ; but the difficulties in the way are extreme. There will be and can be no reduction in military expenditure, the French believing that war may break out any day. The Deputies, who are now elected by district-voting, dare not offend their constituents by stopping the outlay on their local im- provements, so the Public Works expenditure must go on ; while as to the Civil Service, With its hundreds of thousands of officials, every dismissal excites the active and bitter wrath of some group of families all of whose members possess votes. This bribing of constituents goes terribly far in France ; it daunted even M. Gam- betta, who advocated serutin de Bite in the vain hope of arresting it ; and it can be stopped by nothing except an appeal to the nation, which would reveal the true financial situation, and might cause, probably would cause, a financial panic. There is no evidence that any party in France, or any President, will display this civil courage. It is, however, upon this hope that the 'future of France depends, and upon this that the tone of the new Chamber, which meets on November 12th, but will waste weeks over squabbles about " verification," ending probably in the disfranchisement of the forty Boulangists, is mainly important. The situation is not incurable, it never is in France ; but then, in France it is so often cured only when some catastrophe has occurred.
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