FRANCE AND REVOLUTION.
and in the long run this would do more harm to governments than the attacks of which they are now the object. Nor, though it may seem a rash thing to say, do we think that the consequences of General Andre's retire- ment, even if it involved the fall of the Waldeck-Rousseau Cabinet, would be so grave as is sometimes supposed. French Cabinets are of much more importance in the eyes of their friends than in the eyes of the country. Indeed, the fact that the nation seems equally content with every Ministry that comes into power is one of tins least satisfactory features of French political life. The explanation probably is that Frenchmen regard national politics very much as Londoners regard municipal politics. They leave them to be managed by those who have time to attend to them, and the minority who have this time are apt to recoup themselves for their expenditure by using it to grind their own axes. The electors who return the average French Deputy are usually only a fraction of the constituency which he nominally represents, and this fraction has often ends in view which are in no way shared by the electors generally. The result of this state of things is seen in the inconsistency which may so often be observed between the conception and the application of French laws. What, for example, is the case put forward for the Ministerial Associations Bill ? That the drastic measures associated with the name of M. Jules Ferry have failed to answer their pur- pose. But the reason why they have failed to answer their purpose is that no sustained attempt was made to carry out that purpose. A monastery or two was broken into by the officers of the law, with such elaborate pre- paration as almost to suggest the idea of a. preconcerted arrangement between the executioner and his victims, and then nothing more was done. And, to go a step further, the reason why nothing more was done is that the conception of the law was designed to please one set of people and the non-execution of the law was designed to please another set. The professional Radical likes to have his fling in the Chamber. The strong words of a measure be is assisting to pass are music in his ear, and he draws out their sweetness to the last note by picturing in successive speeches the tremendous things which the Bill under discussion will enable the Govern- ment to do. It is to give him this enjoyment that the Government brings in and passes so many measures of vast scope and of tremendous import. But when it comes to putting a law in force other considerations assert them- selves. The people in the districts affected by it are quite willing to let its authors say what they like in the Chamber. But they may not be equally willing to see the new law carried out in their own locality. General denunciations of religious Orders are one thing ; annoy- ances inflicted on a particular Order which happens to be liked in the neighbourhood are quite another. The lesson which this distinction conveys to the authorities is plain. They have gratified one class by passing the law, why should not they gratify another by letting the law remain a dead letter ? This is what happened to the religious legislation of M. Jules Ferry. This is what will probably happen to the religious legislation of M. Waldeck- Rousseau.
For the man who wishes to see France saved from any further disturbance this state of opinion has its con- solations. He is compelled, it is true, to bear a good deal of sinister predictions. The friends of a Ministry are con- stantly proclaiming that the fall of the best of all possible Cabinets will inevitably be followed by a revolution brought about by the bad Frenchmen who have defeated the Government. The enemies of a Ministry are equally busy in asserting that unless it is got rid of the good Frenchmen who seek to defeat it will have no choice but to bring about a revolution of their own. Thirty years of Republican government have gone far to reduce both threats to their real value. Ministries change, but France remains. No matter who is in office, the main lines of French policy are unaltered. There is no varia- • tion in the treatment of foreign affairs, none in the atten- tion paid to the Army, none, strange to say, in the ineffectual hostility of which the Catholic Church is the object. The troth is that in these respects the action of the Government is determined by larger and more per- manent forces than commonly find expression in the Chamber. The questions on which Ministers now take office and now have it taken from them float on the surface of politics. The questions which concern the country as distinct from the politicians lie deeper down, and so long as the politicians leave them alone there is no real fear of revolution. It is not merely that Frenchmen are pros- perous, and therefore contented, and that these are elements which do not lend. themselves to the manufac- ture of revolutions ; it is that Frenchmen live under a Con- stitution which seems as though it were expressly framed to save them the trouble of making revolutions. If they are so provoked at the action of a particular Ministry that they would risk all the evils of a revolution rather than allow them to remain in power, they have at hand a much easier means of giving effect to their indignation. All that they have to do is to go and vote for the Opposition candidate at the next election. There is no need even to wait for a General Election. A dozen conspicuous defeats of the Government candidates at as many by-elections would make the strongest majority in the Chamber shy of provoking similar reverses at the hands of their own constituents. Whatever may be the faults of universal suffrage, it is at least a very effectual safety-valve. The man who allows public affairs to be carried on in a way he dislikes because he is too indifferent or too indolent to vote for a Deputy who will see that they are carried on differently is not the man to make a revolution.
But what if the majority of Frenchmen were convinced that the Constitution itself is in fault, that the Executive is too much the creature of the Chamber, and that what France needs, if she is to be really well governed, is a President with the powers of the President of the United States, and elected as he is by the whole people ? Would not this give good ground for a revolution ? Ministries, no doubt, can be changed by changing the composition of the Chamber, whose confidence they must possess if they are to live ; but to change the Constitution is a graver matter. Graver, if you like, but not really more difficult. All that is wanted is a Chamber bent upon bringing about revision in a particular direction. With this assured, there is not the slightest chance that the Senate would withhold its consent, and this can be assured whenever the possessors of votes take the trouble to go to the poll. Where is the need of a revolution when all the gains of revolution lie within reach unattended by any of its risks ?
That in itself this change would be a good one is very arguable. France likes a strong government, and so long as the President is the creation of the two Chambers, and not of the nation, he is not likely to have more strength than his creators. Indeed, the change would probably have been made before now had it not been for the dislike of revolu- tions which Frenchmen have learned from experience of them. They see that, although revision in this sense is perfectly within their reach without a revolution, its is quite on the cards that in present circumstances it would be followed by a revolution. It is the expectation of this that has kept the existing Constitution unchanged till now, and will quite possibly keep it unchanged for some time longer. Frenchmen have not forgotten the steps by which the Second Empire was built up. They remember that Napoleon III. was first a candidate for the Presidentship and then President, and that if neither of these characters had been within his reach, he might never have been Emperor. What is to prevent an heir of his name from passing by the same stages to an equal eminence ? If the result of revision were to make Prince Victor or Prince Louis Bonaparte President, would not revolution have been brought appreciably nearer ? This is a question which is likely to go on being asked so long as this danger exists, and no effectual precautions can be suggested to meet it ; and until it can be satisfactorily answered, revision will be a word of fear for the majority of Frenchmen. Their dislike of revolution is likely to stand in the way of their using the very machinery which was intended to make revolution unnecessary.
Previous page
