NEWS OF THE WEEK.
Trim Provisional Government at Paris has fixed the days for the election and meeting of the National Assembly—the 9th and eOth of April. The number of members is to be nine hundred ; every male twenty-five years of age is to be eligible, every male of twenty-one years to have a vote at the election. The decree has been subjected to two kinds of criticism. In France, objection has been taken to the tardiness of the election : but it must be allowed that some breathing-time was required for the recovery of calm, for learning the state of the provinces, de- liberating on the nature of the convention, and for setting so ex- tensive a machinery to work. In England, the objection is made to the extent of the machinery; and we have had some foreboding strictures on the dangers that menace a country governed by universal suffrage. It should be observed, however, that the As- sembly is not to be a governing but a constituent body : the persons who undertook to depose the Monarch in the name of the People" necessarily aopeal, in their own justifica- tion, to the People: at apneti L "the wealth and intelligetwe
of the Country," or any ther eyrie and partial appeal, woda- be theoretically alisurd -and practically unfair. Indeed, it would be quite as well to abstain from judging the acts of our neigh- bours by English standards. They are acting upon views and under compulsions which we cannot fully appreciate until we have them developed intim discuaaions of the promised council of the nation; and criticism is a kind of intervention, the more impertinent in that it rests on imperfect knowledge. Where the Provisional Government lays itself open to censure, and, as it were, incurs condemnation ipso facto, is in going be- yond its provisional function to undertake legislation of a per- manent character. It was, for example, within its province to suspend the sitting of the Peers, but not to abolish the order of -Peerage by abolishing titles ; an act anticipating the office of the constituent body. Again, in decreeing a limit to the hours of labour, the Government exceeded the authority of any temporary body. Indeed, the objectionable character of these proceedings is forcibly illustrated by the very form in which the law is promulgated—by edict, like the laws of an absolute monarch, not by a statute, with the vote Ind sanction of national representatives. The Government finds its greatest difficulties in the result of its own errors. Fostered by official encouragement, the labour question has suddenly grown to the proportions of a monster that threatens to overwhelm all decorous rule. Every class of industry, filled with impatient if not vain hopes, rushes to the indiscreet Government for "relief." All these difficult and ha- zardous questions ought to have been referred to the Conven- tion, or to the Government formed by that national agency; and the effect of an opposite course is not only to precipitate these embarrassing demands, but to entail other difficulties, to cope with which is quite beyond the power of • provisional authority. The Provisional Ministers find themselves suddenly hampered in the most distressing manner between the troubles of the past and of the future. A redundant labour-market transmits to them .its surplus labour, demanding employment and better wages ; and Communism peremptorily demands an impossible existence amid the machinery of a discordant system. While the omnibus men are "striking" for higher pay, a leading journal has organized a community of property in its own office between masters and men ; of course subjecting the men, who have hitherto counted on regular wages to the vicissitudes of profit and loss—of loss in a speculation which no longer offers the premium of large-individual profits for concentrated activity of management. Heed- less of the "fraternity " promised by the new Republic, the French workpeeple are clamorously obliging their employer to expel English competitors. The Government, which has under- taken to conduct the leading nation of Europe, finds itself power.. less to contend alike with the exploded dogma of protection or the unrecognized theory of cooperation, both demanding a simultaneous existence ; and, while inviting the very need* friendship of a powerful neighbour, is obliged toapologize to that neighbour for the ill-treatment of As subjects. But that is not all. The harrassed Government cannot stand. still. These elements of disorder have already fructified in a gene- ral commercial panic. Trade is arrested, the income of traders is frozen in its channels, profits are suspended, the fund for the payment of wages ceases: no "orders" . dome in from home; if they de from abroad, the-fectorinf are not at work to fulfil them: business standing idle, servants are not wanted ; and economy prescribes the discharge of servants, both in trade and in private families. It is checked only by one thing, which conceals but does not mitigate the evil—the fear of incurring odium and the revenge of revolutionary violence. Already the rulers begin to tremble at the dangers that lurk in this state of society. The Minister of Finance has resigned— modestly, candidly, and astutely urging the safe plea of personal .capacity! The gentleman who ventures to accept the vacant post is one in whom rashness is not surprising—M. Gamier- Pages. Another resignation is talked of—that of M. LatIlartine ; who probably discovers too much of the rude and sordid in the work of revolutionary politics. And palliatives are sought : a dis- count office is opened tn. support trade—out of the taxes paid by trade ! a contrivance like the attempts in mechanics to realize 4‘ perpetual motion," which must soon come to a stop for waut of creative power. Madame Lainartine and the ladies of other Ministers are getting up a ball in the Jardin d'Hiver, to furnish employment by " encouraging,.. trede,"—a curious resort of the Republicans to the devices of aristocratic patronage.
Here are abundant signs of disorder and danger for the new Republic. There is no doubt that numbers deplore the revolutiott ; execrati: 115; sellishne:s of Louis Philippe that alienated the m
ia suggested change, t%:, obstinacy oc.m. Guizot that pi. zed 6 ntest, Ole self-sufeeieney of --?4„Urs_that made Ins refuee to main (sin ordee byfbe Armn-ostketi...iiess of a Government that is forbidding the safe existeetencf trade-while it has no authority to establish Communism. Aireaf..* sauguine partisans are expecting reaction. Some anticipate the recal of the Dutchess of Orleans and the coronafion .of the Count of Paris. The Legitimists are currying fseour with the country, and "Henry the Fifth" is whispered. The Bo. naparte family put France in mind of their existence. AR pro. fessions are thronged, that of royalty not excepted: the com- petitors who "want places" are many, and evidently they would not be obstinate in requiring "all letters to be post- paid." But they must at least wait : Royalty has sunk to too low a reputation in France; the people stand committed to a Republic, and the experiment must of necessity run its course.
