M. FERRY'S POSITION.
TO be the most unpopular man in a party—to be dis- liked, that is, by the greatest number either of those who are your opponents, or of those who ought to be your friends—is a common fate enough. As it is almost in- evitable that the distinction should be borne by some one, it is a sort of political wooden-spoon. But to be equally hated by professed friends and by avowed enemies is an unusual fate. In most men, the magnet has two ends ; what repels some attracts others. M. Jules Ferry is a conspicuous figure among these rare exceptions. He is not only the most unpopular man among Republicans or among Opportunists ; he is the most unpopular man in France. The Conservatives hate him as they hate no one else ; the Radicals hate him as they hate no one else. He is detested by men who know nothing and care nothing about politics,—by peasants far away in the provinces, by priests and women in remote towns and villages, by Socialist workmen to whom every form of settled government is equally odious. Even the moderate Republicans—we use the term as indicating a party distinct and separate from the Opportunists—neither love nor trust him. It is a singular position to hold, yet as regards each one of its elements, it is easily accounted for. As regards the Church, he has had great opportunities, and he has made full use of them. There are men in the Extreme Left whose detestation of religion is far more pro- nounced than M. Ferry's has ever been. Yet we doubt whether a Cabinet presided over by M. Clemenceau or M. Camille Pelletan, would excite the outburst of Conservative hate that would be called forth if M. Ferry became Presi- dent of the Council. The reason is, that though the Radicals have threatened the Church often enough, they have never been able to make their words good. M. Ferry, on the other hand, has been able to perform all that he has promised. The worst incidents of the needless religious war which has gone on for some ten years in France, are due to M. Ferry's intervention or to M. Ferry's indifference. Some blows he has struck himself, others he has allowed to be struck without remonstrance. He has himself turned the religious orders out of their houses. He has done nothing to prevent the laicisation of hospitals, or the banishment of religious emblems from schools. Consequently, in his case a positive desire for vengeance is present which would be wanting in almost any other. The very methods in which he has carried on the conflict have ministered to this same feeling. There has been an exasperating legality about them. M. Ferry has never declared himself a persecutor,—he has prided himself on simply carrying out the laws he found in being. His measures have not, as he has frequently pointed out, involved any new expedients ; they have been simply the application to the existing circumstances of France, of precautions of which the State had foreseen the necessity years before. A cold, mechanical adversary is always the hardest to put up with. What has made M. Ferry hated by politicians who identify their cause with that of the Church, has been efficacious in precisely the same way with numbers of men and women who care absolutely nothing about politics. He has laid hands upon the ark of God. He has treated priests and monks as though they were common criminals. He has punished them, not for doing anything, but for being sOmething ; and as a consequence of this, he is held in horror by numbers to whom Conservative and Radical are mere meaningless names. It is the same with the peasantry. They might have put up with his treatment of the Church, but they have seen their sons and their brothers start for Tonquin, and either never return or return mutilated and invalided. Where M. Ferry's past record is not damning, the expectations formed of him are as effectual as actual achievements. He is regarded by the Extreme Left as the one resolute man among the Opportunists, the one man who, if he had the chance, would really fight if fighting promised to serve his purpose. How strong this feeling is, may be inferred by the revolutionary measures the Extreme Left were prepared to take had M. Ferry been elected President. Men do not throw Constitutions over- board and take their chance of defeat in civil warfare, unless they think that worse will befall them if they sit still. It was so important to deter the Congress from electing M. Ferry, that the Radicals were willing to run all risks merely to gain that single end.
These facts give remarkable interest to M. Ferry's present attempt. He is trying to win the Church over to the Opportunist side without making the consequent breach with the Radicals irreparable. It would be a difficult task for any man to perform, but for M. Ferry it comes very near to being an impossible task. But he addressed him- self to it in the Chamber a fortnight ago, and this week he has addressed himself to it again at a public meeting. To the Church he offers religious peace and punctual payment of salaries. Whatever else the Chamber touches, let it leave the Budget of Public Worship alone. It was not returned to wage war against religion ; let it be content to do its own business, and to allow the clergy to do theirs. But this is all that M. Ferry thinks necessary to secure the peace he talks of, and it is by this narrowness of interpretation probably that he hopes to gain Radical support. It is here that the difference between the Oppor- tunist and the Moderate Republican first shows itself. The Moderate Republican wishes to undo the past ; the Opportunist would leave the past alone, and confine himself wholly to the future. The Moderate Republican would reject the clause in the new Military Bill which sends every seminarist to the barrack, and would give considerable liberty in the matter of education to the communal authorities. M. Ferry is silent about the Military Bill, and has nothing but praise for the Education Law. Acceptance of the Budget of Public Worship is the one concession he proposes to make ; and he must be supposed to think that, while this will relieve the clergy of so much uneasiness with regard to the future that they will in the end accept it in full discharge of all his pro- mises, it will seem to the Radicals so immeasurably better than the reactionary legislation they would have to put up with if either the Conservatives or the Moderate Re- publicans were in power, that their opposition will in time be disarmed. Unfortunately for M. Ferry's plan, there is one question to which he will hardly be able to escape giving an answer. The system of election in force in France constantly leaves to the friends of a candidate who has no chance of being returned, the power of determining which of two other candidates shall be successful. At the next General Election, there are likely to be an unusual number of second ballots. In almost every constituency, there will be, under whatever name, a Radical, a Moderate, and a Conservative candidate. Hitherto, whenever this has occurred, the Opportunists, if their candidate has stood lower than the Radical at the first ballot, have given the Radical their votes at the second ballot. They have done their best to win the seat, but when this has been seen to be impossible, they have supported the man who called himself a Republican, no matter how extreme his Republi- canism might be. The Moderates of the school of M. Ribot say that to do this is to sacrifice substance to form, and that though a Moderate Republican may not think it right to vote for a Reactionary, he ought not under any circumstances to vote for a Radical. The Radicals are really the worst enemies of the Republic, and it is the refusal of the Opportunists to recognise this fact in the past that has brought the Republic to its present plight. Rather than share in this refusal themselves, the Moderates are prepared to face every consequence that their absten- tion may entail. Will M. Ferry do likewise, and advise his friends to do likewise ? This is the question on which the future of the Opportunist Party really seems to turn. As yet, M. Ferry has been silent on it ; but it is not likely that he will be able to maintain this attitude in face of the challenges which will constantly be addressed to him alike from Radicals and Conservatives in the interval between this and October.
Previous page
