THE CYNICISM OF DEMOCRACY.
J)EMOCRACIES, at all events in France and England, have of late years shown, signs of a singular change. They are ceasing to believe in themselves. They , are giving themselves over to the guidance of men in whose capacity and honesty they do not pretend to feel confidence. They elect the same kind of representatives
at one election after another without expecting, or even desiring, any different outcome. It is not that they make any secret Of their dislike of the results they actually obtain. They recognize clearly the faults of the system they have created, but they make no effort to change it. They have come to regard their Parliament very much as they regard their climate. Both are things to be put up with, because it is hopeless to think of altering either. In the case of the weather this is common- sense ; ba, the case of politics it is a specially mischievous form of indolence. A democracy which accepts its vices, recognizing all the time that they are vices, but making no attempt to cure them, is a democracy on the way to a very ugly fall.
The present situation in France is a singular example of this state of mind. The nation has shown a very clear appreciation of the unsettled state of European politics, and of the consequent necessity of guarding its frontiers against sudden attack. In order to do this France has sub- mitted to the heavy sacrifices in men and money imposed on her by the Three Years' Service Law. While in this temper of alarm and prevision the time came round for a General Election, and a new Chamber has been returned. When the Prime Minister who had had the conduct of the election resigned, after some delay a Ministry was formed which seemed to be exactly what the position of affairs required. M. Ribot bad secured the co-operation of two possible rivals—M. Delcasse and M. Leon Bourgeois; his colleagues were all sound Republicans, and his own record on that point was beyond reproach. He is con- vinced that France is now a Republic not by accident, but because she is profoundly attached to Republican institu- tions, and he is equally certain that she is resolved to maintain her rank as a great nation. Here, it might have been thought, was the very Ministry that France needed and ought to desire.; Differences about subordinate matters would, no doubt, show them- selves by and by, but, provided that the Cabinet were agreed upon the Three Years' Service Law, these might for the time be disregarded. It was known, indeed, that to a section of the Left the abolition of the Three Years' Service Law seemed the one thing worth fighting for. Anti- Militarism is for the moment the single article of their political creed. But though Socialists of this type are an appreciable part of the Republican majority, they are only a part of it, and if the other sections had remained true to their professed sense of the present importance to France of international questions, M. Ribot would still be in office —if only because he was the chief author of the Alliance with Russia. But a new teat has been invented whidh Ministry must satisfy if it wishes to survive its first triaL It must, in critical divisions, unite all the groups of the Left. To do this it must devise a policy which shall bring into line the most incompatible and contradictory varieties of Republican opinion. The Militarist and the Anti-Militarist, the Collectivist and the Individualist, must lie down together, and hope that a political little child will be found to lead them. As it was plain that this was not an office likely to suit M. Ribot, his Ministry lasted just one day. The division of yesterday week showed that men can be quite alive to the international importance of the Three Years' Service Law, and yet be willing to make it impossible for a Cabinet which does not command the Anti-Militarist vote to live except as a recurrent creation of accident and snap divisions.
In this state of things some comfort may be found in the explanation which we began by suggesting. This division may only show what the French elector will tolerate, not what he really wishes. Even this theory is discouraging enougli. A newly elected Chamber ought not in any circumstances to give a wholly wrong impres- sion of the mind and temper of those who have returned it. But in the present instance it seems likely that this is exactly what it has done. In that case public opinion is certainly not in a healthy state. It has no right to show this strange indifference to the political opinions of the men by whom it consents to be represented. Still, even this is better than that public opinion should go all lengths with the men whom it tolerates as its mouth- pieces. The belief that French policy and administration are the proper business of Frenchmen cannot have wholly disappeared in a nation which so marvellously renewed its strength not much more than a generation ago. May we not hope that even the set-back sustained by rational and moderate Republicanism last week may in the end minister to a reformation on which the whole fortune of France depends ? Certainly there was some promise of this in the debate and division of Tuesday. The majority which made short work of M. Ribot was not prepared to go the same length with M. Viviani. As regards the Three Years' Service Law there was little to choose between the two Ministers. M. Viviani tried to put a little more gilding on the pill, but the pill itself was unchanged. At no time have the defenders of the three years' term treated it as anything else than a temporary expedient designed to meet a necessity suddenly created by the action of a neighbouring Power. It was all along intended to meet that necessity by less exacting methods when there had been time to frame them. M. Viviani spoke of Bills for making the youth of the nation better prepared for their term of service and for improving the Reserves. Not until these Bills have passed and have proved to answer their purpose can he consent to even a partial lightening of military burdens. The Anti-Militarists saw plainly enough that this policy would defeat their ends quite as effectually as anything that M. Ribot could have done, but they could not bring the majority of the Chamber to agree with them. On a vote of confidence the Government had a majority of 223. This may, of course, be nothing more than an exhibi- tion of momentary good sense on the part of the Chamber. It does not alter the fact that M. Ribot was defeated in the same Chamber four days earlier. And, even if it points to returning sanity on the part of the Deputies, it tells us nothing of any corresponding movement in the minds of the electorate. Such a mental revolution is not likely to be brought about in a day. What needs explana- tion is the fact that, while a good deal of evidence points to a genuine change of feeling about public affairs in whole classes of Frenchmen, the elections go on just as before. If men are coming to think differently, why do not they vote differently? The reason suggested above was that they have grown weary alike of politics and of politicians. Some of them do not think it worth while to Tote when they are certain to be in a minority. As they cannot influence the course of events, is it not wiser to forget what is going on in the Chamber or at the polling- booths ? A larger number, probably, do not abstain altogether, but they have ceased to follow what is going on in the political world, and therefore vote with the party to which they still in name belong. They have been Republicans all their lives, and, though they dislike much that the party has done, they are neither Royalists nor Bonapartists, and a Republican candidate who really shares and can express their opinions seldom presents himself. The Deputy for their arrondissement has become to them merely a wheel which it is their business to set moving at stated intervals. They believe him to be ignorant; they suspect, if they do not actually know, that he is corrupt; they dislike the legislation the praises of which he comes periodically to sing. But they are electors, and be is the recognized party candidate, so they vote for him. Probably the growth of this way of looking at politics has been stimulated by the regularity with which the elections come round. The French voter is never asked to decide upon a particular issue which has suddenly arisen. Since 1875 there has never been a Dissolution. As the electoral period comes round Parliament auto- matically ceases to exists, and the Deputies receive a new mandate, which is usually the counterpart of the one that has just come to an end. Perhaps if M. Ribot had asked for a Dissolution, and the President bad had the power of granting it without the consent of the Senate, the election would have turned mainly on the foreign situation, and France might for once have had a Parliament which repre- sented the real mind of a homogeneous majority. There are not wanting traces of a similar process at work in England. During the last two years more than one question has presented itself about which the elec- torate would once have insisted on making their opinions known. Yet hardly any wish of the kind has been visible, except at meetings here and there of a distinctly party character. One reason for this apparent indifference to what is going on may have been the prevailing uncertainty as to the result of a General Election if there was one. But another and much more weighty reason is that the Parliament Act has reduced Great Britain to the position in which France has been for a generation. A Government which has come in with a substantial majority cannot now be upset for five years. It may do what it chooses in the first three of theiii, and then it has two years remaining in which to life down any unpopularity which it has undesignedly incurred. Nothing could be better fitted to generate the cynicism which accepts misgovernment as an inseparable accidedt of political life.
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