M. GAMBETTA AND THE ELECTIONS.
THE article from the Republique Francaise which the Paris correspondent of the Standard gave at length on Wednes- day, deserves the prominence accorded to it. It is a real mani- festo from M. Gambetta, a real warning to the constituencies that, if they wish to have him as Prime Minister, they must take certain specific steps to obtain their wish ; and his subsequent speech at Tours lends it, on the whole, additional authority. If the Scrutin. de Liste had been voted, M. Gambetta would have been under no necessity to put out such a manifesto. With election by Departments, he could have secured the return, not merely of a Republican majority —that is placed beyond doubt, even under the Serutin d'Arrondissement—but of an homogeneous Republican ma- jority. With election by Arrondissement, he evidently does not feel secure of this ; consequently, his first act is, not to construct a programme, not to tell the electors what they will get by giving him the kind of majority he desires, but to make them understand that if they return a majority of the same kind as the majority in the present Chamber, affairs will go on in precisely the same fashion as that which has created so much dissatisfaction during the last thirty months. The description given in the article of the Ministerial crises which have been so frequent during that time is exceedingly true. The writer provides the electors with a form of self-examina- tion. They are to ask themselves whether they think it correct that changes in the Cabinet should take place when the Chamber is not sitting, or during the Session by the help of votes which astonish even those who give them ; whether a majority of thirteen, including ten Ministers, is a sufficient majority ; whether a Cabinet which presides over the for- tunes of thirty-six millions of Frenchmen ought to be divided, and to show that it is divided, on questions of capital import- ance ; whether a policy which makes two steps forward and then one step backward, is such a policy as the electors care for. If this state of things is admitted to be unsatisfactory, who is to blame for it ? Not the Ministers, for several of them have shown themselves men of great capacity. Not the Senate, alternately timid and suspicious as the Senate has shown itself. The really guilty party is the Chamber of Deputies. That Chamber has done much, since it has triumphed over re- action and made the Republic real and vital. But though it could defeat Marshal MacMahon, it could not substitute for his policy, a policy as coherent as his, though of a different kind. In order to do this, it must have contained a compact majority, not a majority broken up into incapable and mutually hostile sections, each of which has usually been divided into halves on every important question. With a majority of this kind, it was impossible for a Cabinet to have a decided policy. Such a policy implies that the Govern- ment feel secure in the fidelity of their supporters ; whereas, in this case, they could never feel sure that the supporters of to-day would not be opponents of to-morrow. In this way, one Minister gave place to another, each change representing nothing but the momentary caprice of the Chamber, and con- sequently doing nothing to bring about a more stable state of affairs.
Nothing can be more accurate than this sketch of the Par- liamentary history of the last two years and a half. It is in- complete, however, in one curious particular. No mention is made in it of M. Gambetta's own share in these successive Ministerial crises. Yet, unless public opinion has been entirely misled, there was not one of them which he might not have prevented, not many which he did not provoke. It was essential to his purpose that he should not himself be forced to take office, that he should not himself be even offered office, until a new Chamber had brought with it a new majority ; and this could only be brought about by keeping the Deputies amused by a succession of new faces on the Ministerial bench. Not even to please M. Gambetta would they retain a Minister of whom they had grown weary, but they were willing to try a fresh Minister as often as M. Gambetta liked. This sense, that each Prime Minister stood in the same relation to M. Gambetta as his predecessor, and that in a Ministerial crisis nothing was really at stake,
helped, of course, to make these crises more frequent. It was al ways safe to indulge in them, because M. Gambetta stood always in the background, ready to see that no harm followed. It was his object, so long as the present Chamber should last, to keep things going in such a way as should neither be intolerable nor too endurable.. Now that a new Chamber is to be elected, he is above all things anxious that it should not be a reproduction of the actual Chamber, but rather be elected on considerations more or less closely connected with confidence in himself.
It may be taken, perhaps, as a proof of M. Gambetta's con- fidence that he has but to make his countrymen realise that he- is only to be had on his own terms, in order to get those terms, that he is so silent about the measures which they are- to expect from him, if they give him full support. There be nothing in the article of the Ripublique Franfaise which iden- tifies him irretrievably with any section of the Left. It begins, by a civil reference to those " frankly Republican" journals which would make the elections turn upon the revision of the- Constitution, the complete reform of the magistracy, or the suppression of the budget of Public Worship, but upon none of these questions does it give any certain sound. It prefers to put them aside for the time being, as, being altogether secondary in importance to the creation of a working Parliamentary majority. In other words, it urges the electors to prefer men to measures. M. Gambetta is on many points quite willing to take his policy from the Chamber, and if he can induce the electors to make him. Prime Minister and trust him heartily, he will have time, by- and-by, to ascertain what is the precise direction in which the Chamber wishes to be led. On the other hand, this- method has its inconveniences. It may send up a majority pledged to support a particular Minister; but if this Minister is associated with no particular policy, it may turn out that different sections of the majority entertain different ideas of what they are to expect from him. M. Gambetta's relations with his constituents have probably been in part the cause of this reticence about his policy. It would be a very great triumph for the Extreme Left, if he were to be beaten in Belleville. Whatever be the real distinction between Opportunists and, Radicals, M. Gambetta has never admitted that it is any- thing more than a difference of opinion as to the time when, and the order in which, certain things are to be done. So long as he is returned by the artisan quarter of Paris, he can plead that the capital is Opportunist, and that M. Clemenceatv and his friends misrepresent it when they make it out to be anything else. But if Belleville shows discontent, it will be almost impossible to preach this doctrine any longer. The declaration at Tours that the basis of the senatorial elections must be improved is probably a moderate concession intended to take effect in Belleville. The French are very sensitive to the least semblance of defeat, and it is possible that to be beaten in Belleville might lose M. Gambetta extreme votes elsewhere, without gaining him any moderate votes by way of exchange. To keep Belleville in good-humour, and yet not to make a positive breach between himself and the Moder- ate Left, will be a great feat of political steering. M. Gambetta will have to satisfy the Paris artisan, who desires to make a pretty clean sweep of all existing institutions, and at the same time not to offend the peasants, who are, on the very fairly satisfied with existing institutions, and who, if we may trust appearances, are less delighted with M. Gam- betta since the invasion of Tunis than they were before. If he is to succeed in carrying both these extremes along with him for the next fortnight, it will be by sheer personal ascendency.
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