The Due d'Orleans, the French Pretender, having "defended the Army
and denounced Jewish and Masonic cosmopolitanism," writes to the Gazette de France to condemn centralisation. "Decentralisation," he says, "is economy; it is liberty ; it is the best counterpoise to as well as the most solid defence of authority." No "weak Power can decentralise." "Relying on the national Army, and being myself an energetic and strong, because traditional, central power, I alone am in a position to restore spontaneous life to the towns and villages, and to rescue France from the administrative compression which is stifling it." Englishmen, of coarse, approve decentralisation, but it must not be forgotten that every Government of France from the time of Louis XIV. to the time of M. Loubet has increased centralisation, the most liberal Republicans and the strongest despots equally accepting the system. That seems to show that it suits France, though no doubt it has been pushed to absurd lengths there, every three French- men maintaining a fourth whose business is to look after them. The Duke will probably find that he has annoyed the mighty bureaucracy of France, without exciting enthusiasm among those whom it guides, protects, and fleeces.
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