THE REVIVAL OF THE PANAMA SCANDALS.
IF we understand the situation aright, the Government of France, apart from all moral considerations, is politically wise in deciding to "revive," as it is called, "the Panama scandals," that is, in fact, to refuse to bargain with Arton and the rest of the corrupt group by granting them immunity as the price of their silence. It has been believed for some time that the decision would be different, and that the arguments of those who maintain that the revelations must injure the Republic would prevail. That idea is held by very respectable, as well as very powerful, personages, and is said on decent evidence to have greatly impressed even so inflexibly upright a man as M. Carnot, to whom the whole truth, which is worse than anything yet admitted, was, it is said, confidentially revealed. Recently, however, the Government have dis- covered that the policy of concealment does the Republic much more harm than a revelation could do. The extreme parties, Clerical as well as Red, use the malignant whispers of Paris to convince the small provincial voters that the Senators and Deputies are all rascals together, and the small voters are not unwilling to be convinced. They dis- trust Paris always, they know intimately the circumstances of local representatives, and they have never forgiven, and will never forgive, the enormous robbery committed on them by those who fostered the Panama delusion. The fine on them approached seventy millions sterling, and rich as they are in the aggregate, it was felt in hundreds of thousands of houses as a most cruel blow. The Government finds that the Republic itself is undermined, that Boulangism as it is called, or the wish for a dictatorship, may at any moment become formidable, and that, on the whole, it is better to risk the shame of a great exposure than to live under a cloud of exaggerated suspicion. They will be able to plead, at all events, that all parties alike include tainted persons, and all parties alike a majority of decent men, and to claim that, as for themselves, they have done their utmost to cut the gangrene out. They are not, it is true, as the proceedings show, very enthusiastic, they allow themselves to be held back by "influences" in a rather discreditable way, and they are not, we greatly fear, above the hope of picking out political enemies as the scape- goats of the remaining guilty. They are, too, we feel assured, a little inclined to avail themselves of the intense anti-Semite prejudice which even in France dominates some powerful circles, and to try to create an impression that the corruption is not among Frenchmen, but among Jews who are posing as French citizens. The men most freely accused, from Axton upwards, are all Jews, and it is true, we fear, that Jews were the principal go-betweens betwixt the bribers and the bribed ; but, nevertheless, the distinction made between them and equally implicated Christians is not wholly without a purpose. Still, the Government is prosecuting through a most energetic examining Magistrate, the Chamber shows no desire to protect its own Members, and what with the daring of the Press, the more than daring, the audacity, of the Socialists, and the rage of the voters who have lost money, it is probable that this time something like the whole truth will be brought out. Five or six Deputies will be im- pnsoned, five or six more will be driven into private life in the back-streets of Brussels, and a party, much larger we fear than they, will receive an alarming warning that votes are not to be sold. The air will, at all events, be cleared of rumours, which do more harm to the reputation of France as a strictly organised State than any revelation of the truth could do.
Will the exposure endanger the Republic ? With one very serious reserve we should be inclined to answer in the negative. The scandal will probably affect all parties pretty equally, and the state of French opinion about the receipt of bribes by legislators is exceedingly curious. The electors certainly hold that the Government should put such offences down, but they also hold that, however punished, they will not stay down,—that, in fact, corrup- tion up to a certain extent is inevitable under any regime. When, therefore, they are told that Deputies are rascals under any form of government, but that only the Republic exposes their misconduct, they are very apt to believe, and even to place increased confidence in the Government which exposes. They see, moreover, no alternative, no strong man whom they can trust, and they are well aware that a new ruler, whether King, Emperor, or Dictator, would be obliged to go to war,—a prospect which they detest. The desire for peace, for the safety of their children, for liberty to accumulate without further taxation, is nearly universal in France, and weighs at elections more than is believed. Although, therefore, the voters heartily wish that Deputies and Senators should be men of probity, and are quite willing to punish all individuals who are detected in stealing, there is a disposition to tolerate a great deal of scandal rather than embark upon the uncertain sea of revolution. A Ministry may be discredited, or even overthrown, and there is no particular wish that M. Faure, who is regarded precisely as we regard a respectable Lord Mayor, should remain for ever at the Elysee ; but the body of the people will not demand revision, or greatly change the effective strength of parties, or even dismiss popular individuals, upon grounds of mere suspicion. They will abandon a Deputy who is convicted, but, as the last elections showed, until he is convicted they elect or dismiss him without much reference to the beliefs entertained in Paris about his financial probity. There is a sort of deadness of feeling upon the whole subject, which is not by any means tolerance, for the electors are very angry with all who took money from Panama, but which has many of its positive effects. What rascals,' one can hear the people saying ; but then politicians always are rascals ; ' and so they wait for somebody other than themselves to punish the offenders. It is an ignoble state of feeling, and almost as dangerous to the public weal as general corrup- tion, but it is one very apt to arise in countries where there is no indignant scorn, as there would be in similar cases in England, that superiors should be guilty of such degrading conduct. It is, we imagine, very nearly akin to the feeling of policemen for thieves. The police are quite willing to punish thieves, and much annoyed if Magistrates let them escape ; but still there will be thieves, and what is the use of making a fuss about an inevitable incident of the social scheme ?
There is, however, as we are convinced, one grand exception to this imperfect toleration ; and we watch every scandal of the kind with keen interest to see if there is a chance that the exposures will at last prick Frenchmen to the bone. People who understand the seamy side of French finance always assert that the corruption so rampant in financial transactions, and in the financial department of the newspapers, extends, and has extended for years, to the administration of the huge armaments of France. They say that money is corruptly made and paid by the contractors who supply the Army and Navy, that the frauds must be known to a great many people, and that some day or other an investigating Magistrate, hunting for evidence of financial scandals, will come upon evidence of this fact which he dare not disre- gard. Indeed we may say, to the credit of the French Magistracy, that although they cannot disregard. hints from the Ministry of Justice, their own tendency in this particular matter has been towards an impartial severity. We cannot say whether such stories are true or purely malignant; but they were certainly true under the Empire, as the first incidents of the war with Prussia clearly revealed; and we are bound to add that we never hear of any failure in French preparations, especially as regards the Navy, without seeing its cause sooner or later attri- buted to a deficiency of supplies. If that is true, and corruption is proved, we do not believe that the country will bear it for one hour. The whole population is liable to serve, every voter is interested in the quality and quantity of the stores served out, the whole nation has been preparing for years for victory, and if defeat is caused, or even risked, by frauds in the Offices which supply, there will be short shrift for the suspect. Modern France will not perhaps send them to the guillotine, but she will send them to the galleys without scruple or delay. In such a contingency the Republic would be in extreme danger, for the soldiers would be profoundly irritated— they are still all-powerful in France—and their instinct would be to be rid of that Government of lawyers and commercial agents which permits such things to be. For the present, however, the Republic is safe enough, even if it should be proved, as rumour will have it, that twenty- five legislators at least took actual bribes, cash bribes, to vote for the last three loans raised to complete the Panama Canal. The very best section of French society, the men of piety, and the very worst, the Anarchists, will alike declare that it is society, and not this or that institu- tion, which is rotten, and the average man, half believing, but not liking either of them, will agree to go on and hope for the better times which he makes no serious effort to secure. It has always been so in France, where of all countries in the world the longing for the rule of the honest man has co-existed with tolerance, even loyalty, for the rule of the most corrupt.
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