THE "DECLARATION" OF THE FRENCH MINISTRY.
IT is perhaps wise for M. Gambetta to express but a moderate approval of the new Cabinet. He is probably aware that his new majority is more Radical than it seems, and is cer- tainly aware that to a large section of his supporters the appointment of a Whig Government following such a Liberal victory at the elections is a disappointment. He has at once to moderate their impatience and to warn the Ministry that it must not be too timid, and his pro- mise of distrustful support is intended to secure both ends. But he must, before all men, be aware of the magnitude and decisiveness of the change announced in the Ministerial "de- claration," or, as we should call it, the Message, read to the Senate and the Chamber on the 14th inst. It is barely a month since France was governed by a President supposed to be hostile to the Republic, by a Ministry known to be favour- able to any candidates but Liberal ones, and by an Assembly which, although it had voted a Republic, contained a majority of men who longed for a Monarchical re'ginie. She is now governed by a President who has abdicated the presidency of the Cabinet, retiring to the position of a constitutional Sovereign like our own William HI.—that is, of a sovereign with much personal control over the Executive—by a Ministry which frankly accepts the Republic, and by two Chambers showing a decided majority for the Liberal party. Whatever may be the politics professed by the powers of the State, nothing can be clearer than the avowal of them all that they intend to uphold and not to assail the Republican Constitution. In the Chamber, the only fear is lest the majority should be too Liberal. In the Senate, the majority has elected a Speaker who accepts the Republic, has granted to an honestly Whig Minister of the Interior a life seat, rejecting a most popular "Conservative," M. de Lesseps, and avowedly intends to defend the Constitution out of which it sprung. In the Ministry the President is M. Dufaure, who, though too much of a legalist, is undoubtedly a partisan of the Republic, who agrees to a de- claration stating that "power cannot have a higher origin in human society" than Universal Suffrage ; who pledges his Cabinet to obey the Constitutional laws and to exact fidelity to them from subordinates, and who is ready to introduce Bills repealing the repressive Municipal Law favoured by M. Buffet, and the University Law supposed to be passed in the interest of the Clericals. And finally, we have in the Presi- dential chair a man who, whatever his own leanings, has agreed to the suppression of the Monarchical element in the Cabinet—for the Due Decazes and General de Cissey are re- tained for administrative and exceptional reasons—and who agrees to a "declaration" which is an oath to the Republic. As far as a Republic can be guaranteed by the adhesion of the people, of the Government, and of the head of the Army, the Republic is guaranteed in France.
The change is enormous, and there is one reason for be- lieving it may be permanent which has hitherto been too little noticed. The Republic, as now established, though endangered by the absence of any power capable of arbitrating quickly between Executive and Legislature, provides, for the first time since the Revolution, a means by which the peculiar Conservatism of France may find definite expression. The whole history of the country since 1789 shows that Frenchmen are tenacious of institutions and principles, but wanting in loyalty to individuals. We think of them as fickle, but though they dissolve individual reputations by endless criticism, they change nothing they have once fully accepted. They tire of King, Emperor, President, or statesman, but they never tire of the Code Napoleon, or equality before the law, or the Conscription, or the law of equal division at death, or their centralised and, as Englishmen always think, oppressive system of bureaucracy. Nobody, however powerful, ventures seriously to attack these things. They only attack indi- viduals, and it has been the misfortune of France that with individuals systems have been apt to fall. The Republic, however, allows of such attacks. Every day the Ministry may be changed. Every seven years the President may be changed. Every few years the Chambers may be changed. If the public finds the time of waiting too long, as it may find, the famous Revision Clause allows the Presidential term to be diminished ; and even if a revolution broke out, the people would only have to compel a resignation, and not to upset a dynasty or abolish a constitution. It is quite possible, and in our judgment probable, that French- men may accept the Republic as they accept equality, and fight out their disputes, not only in the political arena, but in the streets, subject to the fixed datum that the form of govern- ment is not to be overthrown or abandoned. This of itself, if it occurs, will be an immense step towards that union of Liberty with Order-which every government in France professes to seek, but hitherto has never found. However bad the rioting, or bitter the quarrelling, the fixity of the form of government must reduce them to temporary evils, through which society can live without civil war. Civil wars by the dozen did not destroy Prance while the principle of the right of the repre- sentative of Hugh Capet to the ultimate headship remained a fixed idea. The right of the Republic is at least as sensible an idea as that, and if the French will but grasp it with their historic tenacity, it may prove a sheet-anchor for the State.
The immediate action of the Government is of little im- portance in comparison with this paramount duty of maintaining the now fully legalised Constitution ; but it will, we imagine, like every other Government, obey in a more or less decided manner the logic of the situation. The Ministry will doubt- less restore the State control over education, which seems to M. Gambetta so all-important, and reinvest the University with the sole right of granting degrees. They will also, it is understood, restore the right of electing mayors to -the muni- cipalities. They must abolish the state of siege, which -except during insurrection is inconsistent with a Republic; they must allow some freedom of public meeting, and they must pass some endurable law of •the Press. They will probably, we greatly fear, pass a measure punishing "attacks en the Con- stitution," and they will also untie the months of the Coun- cillors-General, who are now restrained from passing any opinion upon politics. These changes are certain if the Republic lasts, and so probablyis another which will have great effect in France, the abolition of all privileges based on money in the matter of the conscription. But the character of the "burning questions" to be raised is still undecided, and must depend upon what is still an unknown quantity,—the dispositions of the new repre- sentatives in the Chamber, who make up two-thirds of the whole. Nobody quite knows yet, or will know for a few weeks, what they want most pressingly. It is all very well to say they will follow M. Gambetta, but M. Gambetta is a man of tact, and will lead -them first, we may be sure, against the enemies they dislike the most. If the new men are strongly anti-clerical, as he on the first blush oT the returns believed, the great ecclesiastical question may come at once to the front, and France be torn by a struggle for and against Disestablish- ment. If, as is much more probable, they are anti-clerical, in a good-humoured, slightly scornful way, the fight will be about education and who is to control it. If, as is pos- sible, they are sensitive about taxation, the Budget will assume the political importance which it been repeatedly attained among ourselves. Or if, as is conceivable, they are jealous for France, the administration both of the Army and the Foreign Office may give rise 'to sharp debating, and even to contests with the Marshal. But nothing can be certainly known till their temper is known, and the Ministry, with all its informa- tion, only professes to know it on three points. The Represen- tatives wish, the Declaration implies, for lay control over the higher education, for the right Of electing mayors, and for free trade. That is not a large Credo for an untried French Assembly.
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