THE EXPULSION BILL IN THE SENATE.
ALLOITS report to the Senate concerning the Expul- • sion Bill was, we are told, languidly received by that body, though it probably represents the feeling of the great majority of its Members. The truth is, no doubt, that it is much more like the report of an English Select Com- mittee than that of one of the French Bureaux. It contains a very masterly Constitutional argument, and is almost exhaus- tive in its exposition of that argument ; whereas, the ordinary practice of the French Bureaux is rather to write something of the nature of an epigram on the policy condemned or advocated by the Committee. M. Allou is not epigrammatic, but we may say this of his Report, that if circulated by an English House of Lords against such a Bill as that of the French Government, —were it possible to conceive of our House of Commons as approving anything so foolish as M. Falli&es'
Bill,— it would do a good deal to rehabilitate that Assembly, and inflict a ruinous blow on the reputation of any House of Commons that had endorsed the unjust and feeble policy of class proscription. M. Allou first states that the incident which originated this most threatening measure seemed to the Committee devoid of gravity, and that any disquietude which may exist in the country on the subject would be much fostered, instead of removed, by the commencement of a policy of proscription,—which would certainly be construed as a proof of weakness. M. Allou then goes on to state that a Govern- ment which has stood for twelve years through very serious crises,—which did not alter the law to deal with the Commune, nor to deal with the "Government of Combat,"—has no excuse for altering it now ; that plots abroad are at least as formid- able as those at home, and that a measure therefore which only compels plotters to mature their plots abroad will be -useless to prevent them. He declares that the attack made on true Republican principles by a policy of proscription is most formidable, that it is the beginning of a policy of sus- picion, and of the punishment of objects of mere suspicion, and that such a policy is pretty sure to end in war upon the middle-classes of France, a war full of menace for the peace of France, as well as intrinsically unjust and anti-Republican in .conception. When their country accepted the amnesty asked for by the apologists of the Commune, it intended to let bygones be bygones ; but now a return to vindictive policy is advocated, not against those who, like the Communists, had broken the laws of the country, but against those who have been guilty of nothing more than an involuntary descent from persons of Royal or Imperial rank. M. Allon adds that the spirit which is at the bottom of the proposed law, is one which, if ever it triumphs, will certainly make short work with the Senate. The very existence of a second body of that kind, not emanating directly from the same origin as the Chamber of Deputies, will no longer be tolerated so soon as it is found that it pleads for a larger and more genuinely tolerant spirit of Republicanism than any which the suspicions of the violent party are inclined to sanction. The Committee recommend a simple rejection of the Bill.
It seems to us impossible to present a stronger Constitutional argument than this Report contains, nor can we think that if the difference between the two Chambers proves to be insur- mountable, and a dissolution ensues, M. Allou's Report can fail to exert a great influence over the constituencies, and to contribute to swell the party of liberty and order, against the party of jealous and cowardly suspicions. If France once con- sents to make an offence of lineage at all, she will soon be embarked in the disagreeable task of distinguishing the lineages which are dangerous from the lineages which are not ; and then all the men of aristocratic birth, and some, perhaps, of the descendants of men of purely political reputation, may well come in for the ostracising brand. Nor will the matter end here. If his lineage is to put a bad mark against a man's name, it will soon be argued,—very justly,—that associations and friendships are at least as powerful as lineage, in tempting a man into dangerous combinations. And so the policy of personal denunciation will be fairly in- augurated. It seems to us that the Senate can hardly de better for its reputation as a political Body, than stand or fall by this declaration of Constitutional principles. If it fall, it will fall with the fall of Republican principles,— with that spirit of comprehensiveness without which a Re- public has no glory,—with the credit of the Republic itself. But if it succeeds in either persuading the Chamber, or still better, the country, to reject this most unjust and feeble measure, then it will take a different rank in the Constitution from that time forward. It will have earned its right to pose as the shield and safeguard of the Republic against the frothy fury of popular panic. And a more dignified attitude than this for the second Chamber of the Republic, it is impossible, in our opinion, to assume.
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