THE NEW SECOND CHAMBER IN FRANCE.
two changes in the Democratic direction. He proposed that all Senators should be elected alike, thus abolish- ing the life seats ; and that the electoral bodies, which now consist of the Council-General of each Department plus a delegate from each Commune, should consist of the same Council-General plus a number of delegates chosen by the Communal Councils in proportion to population. The effect of this proposal is that, as the Council-General and the Communal Council are elected by universal suffrage, every Senator will be elected by the same all-potent instrument, the only difference between Deputy and Senator being that the former is dismissed a little sooner, and is chosen directly by the people, while the latter is chosen indirectly, and by the voters of a much larger area. The difference is, apparently, very small,—so small, that M. Ferry denies its existence, declaring that universal suffrage is the same, however exercised ; but Frenchmen see clearly that there is a difference. In the first place, the Communal delegates have not as yet quite " imperative mandates," and do choose rather different men, preferring candidates with some small claim to distinction, though their choice is in future to be restricted by the ostracism of all functionaries and officers under a certain rank. In the second place—and in this there is a lesson of experience for Englishmen—a different class of candidates offer themselves for the Senate. An idea of the fitness of things has grown up. Those who from fineness of temperament, or pride of any kind, including the pride of experts, or inability to face crowds, or fear of the roughness of the Chamber, dislike to offer themselves as Deputies, strive ougerly to become Senators ; and, as they often succeed,
impart to the Senate a distinctive character. It not only becomes through their presence less turbulent and emotional than the Chamber, and more inclined to listen to a certain kind of persuasion, and to accept compro- mises, but it receives an impress which even their absence would now hardly do away, Every corporate body becomes althost immediately an entity, with a life of its own, which often continues vigorous under the most adverse circumstances, and which differentiates it from every other. Nobody ever saw, or will see, two newspapers much alike in character, and there a-e not two Town Councils in England which are identical in tone, though they are all elected by the same classes in the 81M3 way. The French Senate, therefore, whatever its mode of election, will not be like the French Chamber, though it may be in general accord with it ; and the point of interest will be to observe whether it utilizes its difference in any way saffioient to compensate France for the heavy losses the division of the Assembly into a two-headed body inflicts on her. Almost all Conservative statesmen in France think this will be the case, and M. Gambetta was of the same opinion ; It they all, we fancy, are over-much moved by the tradition of the Convention, which was thrown up, rather than elected, a conjunction of circumstances that can hardly occur again. The losses of which we speak are of three kinds, and all scrio In the first place, energy is exhausted, and the work of polit:cal leaders nearly doubled, by the necessity of convincing two separate sets of men, often in instinctive, though half- cooscous, antagonism to each other. M. Ferry has declared this week that he is worked to death, and has been obliged by his double Parliamentary labour to postpone decisions, such as the acceptance of the British proposals on Egyptian finance, for which all Europe is waiting, and to neglect affairs like the Chinese negotiations, which may yet involve disaster., The point may seem comparatively a small one, but the want' of Icl.ure in the lives of great public men is injuring, all Europe;
keeping back the clock, and giving to the men with steel constitutions, who are not always the fittest to govern, a
monopoly of high office. Secondly, the Senate deprives the Chamber of the very men whose presence would give gravity and weight to its deliberations. They might not all be elected by the voters, for all would not be popular; but many would be chosen, for France likes proved ability, and those who were would be better than they are now because of their increased habit of keeping touch with the people. Take M. Leon Say, for instance. It is simply ridiculous that the ablest and most persuasive financier in France should not sit in the House which governs outlay ; while if he did sit there he would feel much more quickly and correctly where the new mania for State outlay presses on the tempers and the resources of the ultimate masters of the country. M. Leon Say's comparative seclusion in the Senate is pure mischief ; and there are fifty experts in his position, including, perhaps, five-sixths of the legal ability of the country. The extent of this loss, which is great even in the United States, where the Senate, resting on the rock of the Federal Pact, is always strong, is even greater in France, where the Senate, whatever its nominal rights, is always weak when, emotion is strongly stirred. The Chamber is then all-powerful, and consequently loses the aid of the most experienced men in France precisely when they are most wanted to act as a moderating force, not on legislation, but on the Deputies' re- solves. When the Chamber, for instance, is asked to declare war on China, and is bursting with excitement and party, passion and heedless " patriotism," what is the use of'M. Leon Say, although in all France he could best tell the Deputies what burdens the war would impose on them and their electors ? Exactly none at all, for he would not be heard till the) Cham- ber had voted ; and any one who thinks• that the Senate dare• refuse a war which the Government had proposed and the Deputies voted by acclaim, understands little of France.
The third loss inflicted by the existence of the Senate on• France, though it is rarely noticed, is, we incline to believe, the most serious of all. It distinctly diminishes the sense of responsibility, and, indeed, political honesty, in both the Government and the Representative Chamber. Every country has its defects ; and we must not forget that in France political fear is much more potent than in England, and small trickery regarded with much less repugnance. The Government, especially under M. Ferry, constantly uses the• Senate as an instrument of deceit. A motion is made, perhaps on ecclesiastical affairs, as happened this week, which the Government know, for reasons of public policy, cannot be• accepted. Nevertheless, as the elections are coming on, the Ministers do not care to be held up to the electors as at heart friendly to the clerics, and they therefore allow the motion to pass unopposed, and then, by giving a hint to their agents in the Senate, reduce the vote to a nullity in the other House. The Radicals rage, but only against the Senate, which, except when general emotion is stirred, they cannot overbear, and the Government escapes. This occurs every month, often on most important subjects, like the incidence of the conscription, and destroys the possibility of the serious education of the Chamber, which in this way is never brought-up sharply by the brutal facts of the situation. The Deputies never learn to distrust their own emotions, and to govern like men of the world instead of doc- trinaires. The effect of the position is even worse upon the Deputies themselves. There are many questions in France, as there are a few in England, upon which the electors are dis- tinctly more Radical than any representatives they can find, and the regular plan in such cases is for the Deputies to vote for the wildest propositions, and leave the Senate to throw them out or reduce them to manageable form. No month passes without an occurrence of the kind, which is some- times revealed to all concerned by some preposterous differ- ence between the result of the ballot within the Chamber and the nominal roll-call. No system could be conceived more certain to produce levity of decision, vacillation of purpose, or speeches made to constituencies alone. If the Deputies' vote were final, they must either brave the country and therebypro tanto educate it, or they must let it have its way, and learn wisdom from the disagreeable consequences ; but at present the country only hears that its representatives are with it in opinion, and that the Senators will not yield. The Depu- ties, in fact, are never fully responsible ; and the electors, to whom the resistance of their leaders would be guidance, believe those leaders to be with them, and thernselveai therefore, nearly infallible. No strong governing power can ever be made so.
The price paid for the services of the Senate seems, there- fore, to us a terribly heavy one. Whether it is too heavy we nand leave Frenchmen to decide, for they know, and we do not, whether, with a single Chamber, a French Ministry will ever have the full courage of its opinions. If it has not, a single Chamber might some day, merely by refusing the delay which the Senate enforces, wreck France ; but if it has, a resignation would interpose just the necessary check. That check would be ample in England, and indeed is, with a penal dissolution, the only working check remaining; but it might not be sufficient in France, where the tendency is to accept a vote from the representatives, as Prince Bismarck accepts a command from the Hohenzollern. In his judgment, the final right lies there, and resignation out of difference of opinion has in it, as theologians say, "something of the nature of " mutiny.
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