* * * * A second study in political degeneration
which I have read this week is Henry Torres's flaming indictment of Pierre Laval. Here again we have an illustration of what happens when the ostensible system of a country bears no practical relation to the actual centres of power. In appearance the French Republic was still the resolute daughter of the principles of 1789, equipped with a perfect democratic system. In practice, the Chambers, the civil service and even the judiciary were being increasingly subjected to the pressure of a tiny plutocratic gang. Adventurers such as Pierre Laval were able by persistence and cunning to ingratiate themselves with the magnites of big business and to obtain control of a large section of the national and provincial Press. The whole of French political life was rapidly assuming the semblance of a gambling syndicate ; bribery and blackmail spread their poisons through the body politic ; and the public, the civil service and the army were beginning to lose all con- fidence in the elected representatives of the people. The forms were preserved ; but the spirit of the French Republic was dying a rich and dreadful death. I once asked a French deputy whether Laval and Bonnet were as crooked as they looked. " Laval, yes," he answered. " As for Bonnet that would evidently be impossible." What appalled the foreign observer of Pierre Laval was his deliberate superficiality of mind ; he flicked over the surface of subjects with the skill and rapidity of a water- beetle ; it was not merely that he was ignorant, it was that he regarded knowledge as his enemy.
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