THE PROSECUTION OF M. GAMBETTA.
THE prosecution of M. Gambetta by a Minister so very skilful in Napoleonic repression as M. de Fourtou, unanimously determined on, moreover, in a session of the "complete Cabinet," can hardly be a mere blunder. But it may be simply provocative, and intended to give occasion to an outbreak of Republican irritation which would frighten the country and justify, in the eyes of many, a more coercive policy; and this is, perhaps, the most hopeful view we can take of the situation. We say the most hopeful, because it is nearly certain that the manceuvre would not succeed, that it would recoil on those who had attempted it, and greatly increase the Republican majority at the polls, instead of providing any opportunity for a recourse to military repression. But it may indicate a design much more dangerous. It may indicate that the Government are getting heated by the struggle, and beginning to see that their policy must be a " thorough " policy, if it is to be any- thing but ridiculous, and that, as occasion serves, they will not shrink from pursuing their present policy of coercion under legal forms, into a policy of coercion without the pretence of such forms. It is but too common for Governments which enter on a policy that is, in the letter, constitutional, but so unconstitu- tional in spirit that it is impossible to make anything of it without straining the Constitution at every point, to drift into open breaches of the Constitution so soon as they discover what the logic of facts requires. This is certainly what every one must fear who tries to account for the prosecution of M. Gambetta on principles in any way consistent with the admitted administrative ability of M. de Fourtou. The Minister of the Interior may underrate,—we hope that this misjudgment is the secret of his conduct,—the self-restraint of the Republican party ; but if he has not made that mistake, we fear that he at least cannot easily have made any other. We cannot suppose for a moment that this prosecution, with its splendid opportunities for stigmatising the policy of the Government, will really frighten the French voters into silence or reaction. M. de Fourtou is far too clever not to know that this trial will quicken the hatred of the Government smoulder- lug all over the country, and that therefore if it fails to quicken that hatred into flames, it will do nothing but harm to the Government which prosecutes. We cannot but fear that unless the "whole Cabinet" have determined to try the chance of irritating the Radicals into rebellion, they are beginning at last to half-contemplate ulterior measures. The prosecution of M. Gambetta is simply silly, unless it is intended either to unmask the supposed violence of the Radicals, or to initiate a prolonged attack on Parliamentary Govern- ment. We cannot believe that M. de Fourtou is simply silly. And therefore we cannot but fear that if he does not greatly underrate Republican self-restraint, he sees his way to something like an inroad on the legal liberties of France.
A third explanation has been broached, but it strikes us as too unreal to suit even the genius of the Duo de Broglie. It is said that the French Prime Minister foresees the certainty of defeat at the polls and the necessity of his own resignation, but that he wants to provide against the possibility of M. Gambetta's accession to his place. He believes,—so this emplane,- ton asserts,—that the Marshal will hold on, and that he must go for a Ministry to the victorious party, but the Due de Broglie wants to exclude from the number of the possible men the one man who is at once powerful and sagacious, and able to manage as well as to rule. With M. Gambetta left i out n the cold, a Ministry of the Left would probably be
unstable, and might even be countermined by the leader thus excluded. Now Marshal MacMahon, it is asserted, 'could never summon to his counsels one who had been prosecuted for insulting him. Such is the theory ; but this explana- tion is obviously quite too fine-drawn to be true. To suppose that a Minister of M. de Fourtou's type would incur all the unpopularity and hatred of this sort of prosecution only to embarrass the Ministry which was to succeed him, is absurd in the highest degree. What these wildest of political speculators are playing for is success in some form, not a slight attenuation of certain failure. The Duo de Broglie, it is true, is capable of almost any blunder that a doctrinaire can make, but then even, doctrinaires do not hazard much for so slight a stake as putting difficulties in the way of their successors. Almost as well might you suppose that in a struggle for life and death between two combatants, the one who foresaw his own de-
struction would deliberately rally all his available strength for no more important object than that of spraining his oppo- nent's right arm, before he died. Besides, if Marshal Mac. Mahon really makes up his mind to " submit " to the Left at all, as M. Gambetta told him he must do unless he chose to resign, he will not be likely to submit by halves. His honour would gain nothing by that, and his good-sense would be outraged by so futile a reservation. Perhaps, however, there may be a fourth alternative. M. de Fourtou has quite recently repelled as a gross calumny the charge that open violence to the Constitution was in any way contemplated—a charge, by the way, which M. Gambetta care- fully avoided making, his whole speech proceeding on the hypo- thesis that theGovernment's conduct in the past must be assumed to give the measure for the future, that they would strain the Constitution just as they had strained it, but no further,.—and it is to our mind like the Marshal to stop short at anything like an explicit violation of the Constitution, though he makes so light of all the virtual violations of it of which his Minister of the Interior is guilty. It may, therefore, possibly happen that when the elections come off and show an increased majority for the Left, as they are pretty certain to show, the Government will still remain a "Government of combat," but with the intention at least of still keeping within the letter of the ,law. The Marshal may apply again to the Senate for leave to dissolve once more, and if leave is granted, may endeavour to provoke the Republicans to an out- break by a second dissolution, in the firm resolve to avail himself of any such outbreak for the restoration of a military government. On the whole, we think this contingency loss un- likely than any other. Unquestionably it would be within the letter of the Constitution, and would also be most irritating to the Republican party. But we very much doubt whether, if the Ministers are counting on this contingency, they are not reckoning without their host. In the first place, the majority of twenty which the Senate gave for dissolution, was gained by the complete understanding subsisting between the three reactionary parties, an understanding which is all but dissi-
pated already. In the next place, Senators who have the least wish to be re-elected on the next occasion of their vacating their seats, would hardly venture to vote for a second dissolution, when the country had just given a complete and positive answer to the issue put to it on the first. So that take it all in all, we should not expect the Senate to concur with the President in BO flagrant and high-handed an act as that. But even if they did, we suspect that those persons greatly misunderstand the astuteness of the French Radicals, who think thEit if the hand of the Government were so openly displayed as this policy implies, its opponents would play into that hand by attempting a revolution. The French are very inflammable till they see that their opponents are trying to in- flame them, but the moment they see that, it even amuses them to defeat the tactics of the foe. Granting, then, even an attempt to get a second dissolution and the concurrence of the Senate in so monstrous a proposition,—a concurrence which would ruin the political prestige of the Senate for ever- more,—we should quite expect to see the French Republicans play over again quite gravely the game they seem to be playing now. They are apt to be impatient where patience is expected and desired from them, but to be very patient if im- patience is expected and desired from them ; and nothing could be more transparent than the strategy of dissolving a second time, after all the resources of an arbitrary Government had been exhausted in vain, to procure a reactionary Chamber. Thus, to our minds by far the most formidable interpretation of this prosecution directed against the Radical leader, is the interpretation which takes it as symptomatic of willingness to take military steps at once in case of failure. But we eon- less we still feel the strongest hope that this is a false interpre- tation. The present Cabinet is aCabinet of unscrupulous men, some doctrinaire and some practical ; but their chief and they are all committed, and deeply committed, to a literal observance of the Constitution ;—and all the mischief they can do will be done, we suspect, within these rather hampering limits. And elastic as such limits always are in unscrupulous hands, we be- lieve they will prove to be very much more effective indeed than no limits at all.
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