M. TRIERS ON THE CONSTITUTION.
WHAT a wonderful old man it is! It is impossible for any man who knows the world, be his politics what they may, to read M. Thiers' speech of Tuesday to the French ; Assembly without a feeling of hearty admiration. Here is a man of seventy-six, who rusted, so to speak, for twenty years, 1 placed in a time of unusual peril at the head of a great nation, compelled to inaugurate a form of government he only half approves, hampered, threatened, and assailed by half-a-dozen factions, aware that every word he utters makes a foe, and yet stepping forward with cheerful courage to declare his policy, in words so well chosen, so clear and ringing, and yet so adroit, that the best rhetoricians in the most rhetorical of countries may despair of rival- ling his skill. The position was one which to a man of inferior powers might have appeared impossible. It may be broadly stated that for practical political purposes the Assembly is equally divided between Republicans and enemies of Republicanism, while M. Thiers requires for the safety of his Government the support of a large majority. To declare the Republic or not to declare it seems, under such circumstances, equally impossible, but M. Thiers is on a level with his situation. He cannot force the Monarchists to vote the Republic—that in France would be considered a moral treachery,—he cannot compel the Republicans to surrender their convictions, he cannot afford a quarrel a out rance with either, so he meets both by a state- ment that "the Republic is legally established," and "can only be overturned by a Revolution "—precisely the state- ment the Left wanted him to make—but that the Republic must be "conservative," of no party, of no class, seeking its agents "neither high nor low, neither to the right nor to the left, neither in party, nor class, nor origins, but in the full light of public esteem,"—precisely the reassurance anti-Republicans desire. They are afraid of ostracism as well as of defeat. Nor is this statement merely an exhibition of finesse. The Presi- dent is as correct in his statement of the fact as he is wise in his conclusion that to be permanent the fact must be made sup- portable to all parties. The Republic does exist in France. No personal claim interrupts the sovereignty of the whole people, who delegate it to representatives elected in perfectfreedom, and exer- cise administrative power through the individual of their choice. If that is not a Republican constitution, where are we to seek the definition of a Republic ? The Right screamed out insults about the Pact of Bordeaux, but the Pact is not broken by the declaration of a fact, though the existence of the fact may deprive the Pact of all its meaning. Being in existence, the Republic needs institutions and guarantees, but to indicate them would be to arouse once more the fury of the old parties. Therefore, M. Thiers abstains from indicating them, but tells the Assembly, in words which seem to us quite won- derful in their skill, that the task must none the less be under- taken. He advises no course, though he will advise, if asked. "We draw near, gentlemen, to a decisive moment. The form of this Republic has been only an incidental form, given by events and reposing upon your wisdom and your union with the power which you have tempo- rarily chosen. But the public mind is awaiting your action. All are asking what day and what form you will select in order to give to the Republic that conservative strength with which she cannot dispense. It is for you to choose both the day and the form. The country, in delegat- ing to you its powers, has evidently laid upon you the task of saving it, by procuring for it, first, Peace, after Peace, Order, and with order the restoration of its power ; and lastly, a regular Government. You proclaimed this, and thenceforth it was for you to fix the succession and the hour of those divers portions of the work of salvation which is confided to you. God preserve us from placing ourselves in your place, but at the time that you may determine, and when you have chosen some from among you to meditate upon this, if you desire our opinion we will give it frankly and resolutely. This is the grand and decisive Session which opens before you." Just examine that passage, and see how in every line M. Thiers settles some question, yet avoids some rock upon which his policy might easily have been shattered. There is raging strife among the members as to the form of government to be ultimately adopted. The Republic is, says M. Thiers, but its form is merely "incidental." You can alter everything except the essential idea. There is raging strife as to the constituent or non-con- stituent character of the Assembly. It is neither, says M. Thiers, for the Republic is constituted already, but the Assembly has power "to add to the Republic the conservative strength with which it cannot dispense." There is raging strife as to the right of the ad interim Government to propose a Constitution,—strife so keen that the Left threatened to secede if the right were finally asserted. M. Thiers proposes nothing, but calmly reserves to himself, when the Chamber has elected a Commission to draw up the Constitution, to
proffer to it advice, which offered in secret, when men's heads are cool—Frenchmen, like some gases, require contact with the air to become explosive—he is pretty certain will be accepted.
This is the main thought of the Message, as we read it,— that the Chamber is to discover by debate and by inquiry what form the Republic, which is adopted beforehand, shall assume, shall exhaust its energies in the preliminary strife, and shall finally resort to M. Thiers as the arbiter between its furious parties. M. Thiers, well instructed by this pro- cess as to the comparative strength of parties within the Chamber, and with great means of ascertaining the opinion of outside forces, such as Paris, the Army, and the European Powers, will give a final opinion, and compel the Assembly to ratify it by its vote. He will act, in fact, as moderator of the Constitution, and not as Con-
stitution-maker. That seems to us, in the present circumstances of France, a most expedient attitude for her ruler to assume, and it is one which, as we believe, will be most satisfactory to France. It is expedient, because it releases M. Thiers from the necessity of forcing any view on the Assembly before he knows how it will be received, while it leaves him the power, should his final proposals be rejected, of declaring that he can yield only to the nation, and that the Representatives must return to their constituents, a de- mand which under such circumstances the electors themselves would enforce, applying to each member a pressure he would be unable to resist. And it will be satisfactory to France, because the majority of Frenchmen wish the national sovereignty to be respected, as it is by M. Thiers' disclaimer of
any right to octroyer any fundamental law, yet desire M. Thiers to enjoy a most weighty voice in the settlement of the
Constitution. When the parties have been heard and the debate is done, the advice which M. Thiers tenders to the nation will be the advice most in harmony with the political positions—we may trust M. Thiers' astuteness for that—and will, we can scarcely doubt, be the advice accepted. The correspondents say it will not, because the majority of the electors loathe or distrust the word "Republic," but the corre- spondents reflect the opinion of coteries, which are as ill- informed and as opinionated as political exiles.
What this advice will be no man can tell, not even M. Thiers himself, for it is sure to be greatly influenced by the circumstances of the hour, by the situation of parties, and by the attitude of Europe. There are, however, a few data which are obviously true, and on which a considerable number of conclusions may be based. We may, for example, take it to be certain that M. Thiers, be his motive what it may, honestly desires a Republic. His speech of Tuesday could not have been made by a statesman entertaining a lingering desire to play the part of Monk, or to establish constitutional Monarchy, or to revert to Cwsarism, even if he were Cesar. That implies a Republic as the definite form of Government in France. Then it may be taken as certain that M. Thiers desires to be the most visible and powerful figure in this Republic, and that implies the Presidential form, and not the form of Govern- ment by elected Committee which has succeeded in this country and in Switzerland, and has been once tried unsuc- cessfully in France. Again, we may take it as certain that M. Thiers would desire to have the power of arresting any of those sudden emotional outbursts to which popular assemblies are always liable, and which are the most dangerous acci- dents modern free society has to fear, and that he will there- fore claim either the right of dissolution, or the right of veto, or the right of consulting a second and more timid assembly of re- presentatives. As the right of veto is disliked in France as an illogical right, and as the existence of a Second Chamber is a bore to people who want business done with great rapidity and with a certain dramatic completeness of form, we think, as we said last week, that he will prefer to ask for the right of dissolution, to be exercised only in the most extreme cir- cumstances, such as would almost justify a coup d'e"tat. As, again, he cannot quite forget that he is old, that he frequently sleeps while still standing, and that he is childless, we may assume the appointment of some sort of Vice-President almost as a matter of course, while, as he is jealous
of power, we may also assume that the Vice-President will have none. And finally, as M. Thiers is on points genuinely conservative, that is, genuinely distrustful of the ideas expressed by men like M. Gambetta—for instance, though personally a Voltairian, he politically dreads Voltairianism and supports the Church—we think it quite possible that he may advise the re-election of the Assembly by thirds or fourths, instead of all at once. That is not inconsistent with his own claim to dissolve at will, any more than the election of a representative body was under the Empire inconsistent with plebiscites on extraordinary occasions, or if it is, the in- consistency may for the sake of the result be disregarded. None of these proposals, moreover, will be so unacceptable to the Assembly as to be practically impossible. That body is sure not to wish to weaken the Executive, and therefore to accept the terminal Presidency. It is sure to wish to be guaranteed against accident, and therefore to accept the Vice- Presidency. It is sure to wish to keep alive as long as it can, and therefore to propose and press, as well as accept, some scheme of re-election other than simple dissolution. And finally, it is sure to wish to give M. Thiers some checking power over violent Radicalism, should Radicalism obtain by degrees a working majority, and may therefore be ready, though with extreme reluctance, to vest in his hands the power, possibly guarded by some strong restrictions, of ap- pealing to the country through a dissolution. Our general conclusion, therefore, from the Message is that France will emerge from this Session with a Republican Constitution differing from any in existence, a constitution in which all legislative power will belong to a permanent Assembly renewed by degrees, and all executive power to a President chosen by the Assembly, but irremovable, and able by dissolving just before his term expires to take an indirect plebiscite as to his own re-election, a form of Government which will have at least these three merits,—that it will be new, that it will have grown out of circumstances, and that it will allow the ruler to be displaced without a Revolution.
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