THE FRENCH ELECTIONS. R EPRESENTATIVE government is not prospering among the
Latin races. The Italians not only do not trust their Parliament, but in their hopelessness of aid from its deliberations they have risen against its agents in an aimless and sanguinary insurrection. The Spaniards, equally disgusted, have not risen effectively -vet, but they are only waiting, and it is understood on all hands that they would see with pleasure both throne and Parliament superseded by any effective form of uncon- stitutional dictatorship. In France matters have not gone so far, for though Frenchmen are excitable, they have a calculating side to their heads, but we feel by no means sure that they are not moving in the same direction, or that people in this country do not grievously misapprehend the net result of Sunday's elections. As we understand the returns, which are still imperfect because of the vexatious system of second ballots, the situation is this. After the usual campaign of placards, libels, and excited addresses, Sunday found most of the electors of France listless, apathetic, and disinclined to believe that one can- didate was very much better than another. "They are all cads," say the aristocrats ; "They are all bourgeois," shout -the artisans ; "They are all self-seeking rascals," mutter the peasantry among themselves. There was no cause before them and no great measure, they had no immediate grievance to remove, and there was no man visible for whom they could feel the slightest enthusiasm, either of liking or distaste. They did not care about Anti-Semitism, or the wrongs of Captain Dreyf us, or M. Zola and his books, or the Chauvinist party, or the Colonial party, or the cheap bread party, or the Monarchists, or the Imperialists, or the Clericals, or the strong oppo- nents of any of these factions, but regarded the election as a function which had to be performed but from which they expected next to nothing. There were partisans among them as there always are, even furious partisans, but 25 per cent. of the whole were too in- different to go to the polls, and 25 per cent. more, we may be sure, voted because they were urged by local persons, or because of the interests of the locality, or out of personal fancy or distaste for particular candidates. Except in the Socialist districts, where dislike to the present distribution of comfort swallows up all other feelings, they cared little about the whole matter, and even there they were not zealous,. rejecting M. Jaures and M. Guesde, the two ablest Socialists in the Chamber, in favour of inferior men of the same type. The result, '.therefore, subject always to any surprises which the second ballots may have in store for us, is that, although 10 per cent, of the Deputies will be new men, the Chamber will be of the old kind,—a Chamber without a real leader, with no great known orator in it, for M. Jaures is ostracised, split up into groups, and offering no foothold for a permanent Administration. The "Moderate" Govern- ment of M. Meline has, it is true, a nominal majority of about fifty ; but as there are more than thirty of the "Rallied," who only submit to the Republic because they must, and as the Rallied will join the Radical Socialists on almost any test vote out of pure chagrin and mis- chievousness, the prospects for M.. Maine cannot be .considered bright. Moreover, the discontent of the Army, the most menacing feature in the situation, is in no way removed by the elections. The fixed idea of the military chiefs is that if France is to prosper in any great adventure such • as the complicated position of foreign affairs and the restlessness visible throughout the world may compel her to undertake, she must be under a strong Administration, with a visible person at its head as ultimate referee. The new elections promise no such Administration, but, on the contrary, a weak and slippery Ministry, which will take its orders from the Radicals in order to avoid coalitions, while the referee at its head is only M. Felix Faure. Good Lord Mayors, however dignified in manner, are not good chiefs for countries in war, or even in serious nego- tiations. The Government will remain a Government of second-rate persons, and nothing that can really inspirit the nation, more particularly nothing that would involve a land war, will be so much as attempted. The chiefs of the Army remain therefore unsatisfied and irritable, feel- ing that nothing has gone quite right, looking out into Italy and Spain with alarm and disgust—quite justified from their point of view—and in a mood which makes them inclined to seize any opportunity of separate action. They are still, of course, hampered by the absence of any Pretender whom the nation cares for, or any General who has won a great battle, or any statesman whom the whole country respects or even knows ; but if they are pressed by events, or by any unpopular action of the Chambers, or by any incident arising out of the Zola trial, they would find a way over that obstacle in an election of a President by the direct mass vote. Be it remembered that if they move there is in France no force which can resist them, and that the masses are obviously in that apathetic mood which means now, as it did in the last year of Louis Philippe's reign, that the true "people" are weary and disappointed, sick of the want of the dra- matic in their affairs, sick also of the non-appearance of eminent personalities. There is no one to be loyal to, no one who can give them the enjoyment of a coup de thidtre, no one who is not in fact a replica of one of themselves.
This last is, indeed, the most disheartening, as it is also the most curious, feature of affairs in the present Latin world. The older though recent regimes produced in France, Thiers, Gambetta, and MacMahon ; in Spain, Marshal Prim, Castelar, and Canovas ; and in Italy, Cavour, Ricasoli, Garibaldi, Mazzini, Crispi, Massimo d'Azeglio, and an entire group of persons who, whatever else you thought of them, were at least big men ; but now in Southern Europe no one attracts the eye. M. Mane is a very decent Whig, who cannot learn arithmetic ; the Marquis Rudini is a well-meaning aristocrat, who thinks that democracy is a wolf to be held by the ears ; Selior Sagasta is an excellent Liberal of the non-controlling, non-per- suading, non-originating type, competent pilot in calm waters on a bright day with the course clearly marked out. Their rivals are no better, M. Casimir Perier being too sensitive for any great role, Marshal Martinez Campos too completely a soldier of the better kind, and M. Crispi nearly eighty, and if not smirched with corruption, at least with a capacity for getting into pecuniary scrapes which in a statesman among a suspicious people is very nearly as injurious. There is, in fact, no one in all three countries to whom his own people can turn with the con- fidence that at all events he is qualified to bear rule. All careers are open, and open to all men. There is no Frenchman, or Italian, or Spaniard who, if he can read and write, may not enter the political arena, or who, if he showed ability in that arena, would not be welcomed by a party with delight ; but the strong man still holds back. The electors send up shoals of plain men, from among whom Ministers are perforce selected, but the plain men never seem by any chance to rise above the average. Hardly any of them—Ca.stelar, Jaures, and Crispi, are exceptions—are even first-class orators ; and of the great Financial Minister so bitterly required by the economic difficulties of the hour there is no trace. The Civil Service in each country produces men competent to keep the machine going, though not competent, be it observed, to put down pecuniary corruption, and there are in each soldiers of ability ; but of the men the electors choose, who ought to be the salt of the Latin world, hardly one is above the level of those Cabinet Ministers whom a great Premier does not admit into his inner counsels. Government is expected, as in America, to get along with the Departments in the hands of decent professional men; and in the South, where all are perfervid. all impatient, and all thirsting for the dramatic, the expectation is not fulfilled. As in an English theatre, each Government, to succeed, requires a star performer, and he is not forthcoming. As the phenomenon is general, and as it is not in accord with the usual run of events in Southern communities, it may be of only passing importance, but while it exists the march of those com- munities neither is, nor will be, towards success. Mr. Mallock may not be right in attributing to leadership everything that has been accomplished in the domain of industiy ; but it is quite certain that without leadership nothing will be accomplished in the domain of politics.
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