THE FRENCH ELECTIONS. T HE longer we study the results of
the Elections in France, the more reason we have to be satisfied with them. It is perfectly true that M. Gambetta's prophecy of the return of 400 Republicans has, as yet, been disappointed ; but it is also quite true that in comparing the first official declarations of the poll in this election with the ultimate results produced in the last Assembly by the process called the verification of the powers, together with the fruits of the bye-elections, we are comparing not similar, but quite different stages of the con- stitutional struggle. The first official returns in 1876 gave only 295 Republicans in the Chamber of that year. These 295 became 366 only through the changes due to the Parlia- mentary annulling of returns obtained by unfair means and through the results of bye-elections, which last are, on the whole, almost always more favourable than general elections to the Liberal party. Now, even the present official returns will show not 295, but 325 Republicans, when the results of the colonial elections,—which are always Republican,—and of the second ballots are known. Here, then, is a gain of thirty seats for the Republicans, if we compare the present stage of the electoral campaign with the same stage of the campaign of 1876. And a very simple sum in proportion will show that oven if no more elections are invalidated and no more seats afterwards gained at the bye-elections, than were so invali- dated and gained after the elections of February, 1876, the three hundred and twenty-five Republicans of the present offi- cial return will become more than four hundred by the end of another year. Thus even M. Gambetta's somewhat sanguine prediction may be fulfilled to the letter. And even at present we may say that there has been as much gain, as compared with February, 1876, as would imply at a later stage of the struggle the gain for which the orator of the Liberal party vouched. Clearly, with the frightful official pressure exercised in the country districts, anything more than this could not reasonably have been expected. Not only have the rich resources of official temptation and official threats, as learned in the school of the Empire and applied by a man of no common nerve and ability, M. de Fourtou, been absolutely exhausted on this campaign, but not a few unfair acts have been committed oven in counting the votes. Thus in the Dordogne, the electoral. bureaux refused to count for the Republicans those balloting-papers on which the printed names of the Government candidates were pasted over with strips of paper bearing the names of their opponents, and this though the Council of State has decided over and over again that that is a lawful mode of tendering the vote, being indeed a very fair precaution against the tyranny practised against thou:, who are detected by the election-agents in giving their votes against the Government,—the object being, of course, to let the colour of the voting-papers of the Govern- meat candidates appear, thoughthe votes are given to the Opposition. We mention this only as illustrating the unscrupulous official devices which have been used at this election, devices which, no one can doubt, exceeded by far both in unscrupulousness and in number those which the officials made use of at the last election. If, then, so many elections were invalidated a year ago for unfair influence, we may be pretty sure that more rather than less will be invali- dated this year for the same cause; and that to expect the 325 to grow into 400 is not to over-rate, but rather under-rate the causes at work tending in that direction. On the whole, then, even in relation to the more numbers of the Republican repre- sentatives, the results of the voting of Sunday are quite satisfactory. Still more satisfaction do we feel in the consideration of the character of the Elections. The Bonapartists have gained nothing,—have even lost something. The Red Republicans have gained nothing, and even lost something. The gain on the Conservative side,—gain, we mean, as compared not with the first official returns of February, 1876, but with the Assembly dissolved in Sane, 1877,— has been a gain to the minute party which calls itself by the name of Marshal MacMahon. The Bonapartists come back only about 90 strong. The Legitimists count themselves some 40 strong ; and rather more than sixty are to be reckoned as mere vague Conservatives, who accepted the Marshal's nomin- ation, and are simply Anti-Radicals, with a strong preposses- sion in favour of the existing Administration. This is very satisfactory, as showing that the only Monarchical party which had a real hold on the country at all,—the Bonapartists,—are not gaining ground, and that the opponents of the Republic are more and more falling into the ranks of pure Conservatism without any revolutionary recipe for the public ills. Against 198 Conservatives, who are divided into three irreconcilable parties, it will not be very difficult for 325 Republicans to have their own way,—the rather that comparatively few of them are extreme men, or open in any way to the reproach of Communism. But there is another feature in the character of the elections which is still more satis- factory. Wherever any of the Republican candidates has been unfairly persecuted by the Government, he has been returned with great distinction by the electors. Thus, M. Lepouze:, the Mayor of Evreux, who was dismissed for his plain speaking to the Marshal, is returned, and the dismissed Mayors of Tours and Amboise are also returned. M. Bonnet-Duverdier, im- prisoned on the testimony of one .police-agent against that of twenty bystanders, who heard nothing of the insults against the Marshal sworn to by the police-agent, is returned for Lyons ; —again, five Republican gentlemen, condemned by the official magistrates for alleged political offences, are returned for their various departments. In a word, the political attacks of this Government are regarded, not as injuring, but as honouring the men against whom they are directed. M. de Fourtou, though no doubt he has persuaded many poor peasants to vote for the Marshal, and has deterred many more from vot- ing for the Liberals, has yet in various cases conferred a patent of distinction where he meant to inflict a disability. In Paris M. Gambetta has polled a greater poll than ever, and the extra votes are, no doubt, in a large measure due to the disgraceful official prosecution. Once more it is thoroughly satisfactory to know that the Liberal majority, though largest in the great towns, is now by no means confined to the great towns. The Republicans have been compelled, by the careful mixture of large numbers of rural voters in almost every constituency, to choose candidates who have weight with those districts, who are men of sub- stance there, and who regard with no favour the extreme views of many of the Democrats of the cities. Nine-tenths of the Deputies are what we in England should call "county Members,"—i.e., members for a great number of small villages, together with what we should call a county-town, to add an urban element. It is quite true that such towns and the larger villages supply a far larger number of Liberal voters than the small villages, and almost always give an immense Repub- lican majority, but still there are plenty of districts in which, even the small villages have returned Liberal candidates, while almost all the towns would have done so, even in the most reactionary provinces, if the towns had had a representative to themselves. The Republicans have therefore begun to gain over the genuine peasantry to their cause, and have indeed gained the great majority of those of the peasantry who live in groups of any size, and do not merely vegetate in the fields. The effect is as good for the Republican party, as it is for the peasants. The Republicans can no longer venture to take dangerous demagogues for their loaders. They must respect the Conservative prepossessions of the rural constituencies, and therefore must do nothing violent and nothing rash. It is Republican order, not a passion of spasmodic fraternite for which the constituencies have voted.
Last of all, we think it by no means wholly unsatisfactory, —looking to the immediate future,—that the elections appear, when compared with the state of parties in the dissolved Chamber, to show a certain gain for the Conservatives. What France has most to dread is anything like violence, and whatever tends to temper the sense of disaster and humiliation on the one side, or the sense of triumph and pride on the other, is a great security for order and quiet. The Marshal, no doubt, is mortified ; but he is not so much mortified as if the 366 had grown into 400 before his eyes, instead of dwindling to 325. M. Gambetta is, doubtless, pleased, but he is not so much pleased as he would be if his own prediction had been fulfilled to the letter before the Assembly had been convoked. Both parties have been dis- appointed, and the ultimate effect of .disappointment is to lower the tone of the mind and so to incline to moderation, though, perhaps, its first effect, as we may see in the language of both parties, is to irritate and provoke rather tall talk. The best thing that can happen is for the Marshal to send for a very Conservative Left Government, and tone down his lofty pretensions as quietly and quickly as he can. We cannot help hoping now that he will do so, and that the Senate, which supported him in dissolving, but will now reasonably de- mand from him that he shall accept the answer given by the country to his appeal, will wholly discountenance the notion of repeated dissolutions. If so, the Left are not so elated by their triumph, or irritated by its incompleteness, but that they will be inclined 'to accept moderate terms, and not to insist on disqualifying all offieial candidates as such, or on holding the Marshal respon- sible for the sins of his Cabinet. That this Ministry must go,—that the Prefects who have been applying illegal pressure all over France must go after them,—that a trial even of the Due de Broglie and M. de Fourtou, like the trial of the Ministers of Charles X. for their unconstitu- tional practices, would be desirable, we heartily admit ; but it would be most injudicious, we think, and the Republican leaders will probably see it to be injudicious, to go beyond this, and press on the Marshal till he acts like a wild beast at bay. He has never been a politician. Persuaded by bad advice to become so, he has done nothing but mischief to his own reputation, and has given France the opportunity of saying in the most unmistakable manner that she has no intention of being misled by the Head of the State into a policy which would undermine the State. If he is now willing to put his errors behind. him, and to act the Constitutional President once more, it would be best for all parties to accede to that course. It is the course which involves less violent changes than any other, and which best guarantees for the future at once a Liberalism of self-restraint and a Conservatism of concession.
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