DEPUTIES AND ELECTORS.
THE old uniformity has returned, and once again French politics are merely variants of the mischievous phrase which makes Clericalism the one enemy the Republic has to fear. There was a time -when there was at least &super- ficial excuse for this state of things. The Church was frankly hostile to the Republic. It looked forward to a Restoration as the one event that could be trusted to put things straight, and whenever it had the opportunity, it worked openly to bring this event about. Even then the relation between the cause and the effect was mis- understood. However it might be with the dignified clergy, the mass of the cures had no a priori dislike to the Republic. Their enmity was strictly practical. It had its foundation, not in political theory, but in recollections of individual ill-treatment. The clergy spoke of the Republic as they found it ; consequently, it is no wonder that they spoke ill of it. If the Republicans had been sincere in their pro- fessed desire to live and let live where the Church was concerned, they would at any time have found that a little tact and a little forbearance was all that was needed to make the situation very tolerable. Now, however, even the superficial excuse is wanting. The frank hostility has disappeared ; the readiness to judge the Republic by its actions, not by its name, has become nearly universal. But as yet the change is only on one side. For years the Republicans have gone on justifying their ecclesiastical policy by reference to the intimate association of the Church with the Royalist Party ; and now that this connection is dissolved, they seem unable to pipe to any other tune.
In part, perhaps, this inability is due to a genuine con- fusion of thought. The term " Republican " is taken to convey very much more than is really contained in it. When we say of a Frenchman that he is an enemy of the Republic, we mean that he wishes to see the Comte de Paris or Prince Victor sitting in President Carnot's seat ; that he thinks the monarchical form of government either the only legitimate form, or, at the very least, a form which is always and everywhere immeasurably better than the Re- publican form. But when a French Republican says of a man that he is an enemy of the Republic, he very often means something quite different. He is thinking not so much of Republican forms in the abstract, as of Republican policy in the concrete. He attributes, and very justly attributes, to the clergy a hearty dislike of well-nigh everything that the Third Republic has done since it has been allowed to go its own way. He calls the clergy Royalist or Imperialist agents, because to give them this name is to set up a kind of justification for subjecting them to annoyance or disability. But what he really means is that they dislike the banishment of religion from elementary schools, or the imposition of service with the colours on seminarists. It is useless to tell a politician of this type that there is nothing specially Republican about these measures; that they might equally have recommended themselves to an absolutist Emperor like Joseph II.; that, viewed in the light of common-sense, they are objectionable on account not of their authors but of their contents. He has invented a special connotation for the term "Repub- lican," which makes it co-extensive with all that he likes or his opponents dislike. With him, a Royalist is not a man who wishes to see the Comte de Paris King of France, but a man who wishes to repeal certain laws. The Republic is not the constitutional framework of President and Legislature, but the aggregate of measures to which this constitutional framework has given birth. In this sense, no doubt, the clergy are anti-Republicans. They draw a clear line between what the Republic is and what the Republic does ; between the institutions in right of which it takes its assigned place among States, and the legislation in right of which it takes its assigned place among Republics. It would be an interesting inquiry, if the means for carrying it out were forthcoming, how far this attitude of mind is shared by the rural voters. If we listen to Republican Deputies in the Chamber, or Republican journalists in the Press, we shall hear that their speeches and articles do but express the determination of the great body of the electors not to be governed by the clergy. But we may fully accept this assurance without finding ourselves any nearer an answer to our question. Is there no third state between government by the clergy and government by anti-clericals ? Do absolute submission and unqualified repudiation exhaust the possible attitudes of the peasantry to the Church May not they be warm friends of the Republic, and yet not desire a secular school set up in every commune in entire disregard of the wishes alike of the parent and of the Municipality ? May not they be quite determined that the cures shall not dictate to them in things political, without wishing to have their own cure mulcted of his meagre salary because he has preached a sermon upon the duty of electors for the edification of electors' wives ? We do not know that there are any means of getting at the truth about these matters ; but we notice that the Ministers, who ought to be specially well placed in this respect, are very, much louder in their denunciations of the clergy when they are speaking in the Chamber than when they are travelling about the country ; and this difference certainly suggests the conclusion that in this respect the Chamber and the elec- torate are not exactly of one mind ; that if the moderate party had a better organisation, it would have a fair chance of winning votes ; and that the pacific and reassuring declarations of which every autumn sees so abundant a crop, are really intended to make it appear that this organisation is not needed, since the end to which it would be directed will be attained with less trouble and friction by leaving it in the hands of the Cabinet. If this is the object that Ministers have proposed to themselves, they may fairly be congratulated on their success in securing it. There is no sign worth mentioning of the formation of a Moderate Republican Party in France. The politicians who would compose it dined together the other day ; but it was three years, if we mistake not, since they had nerved themselves to a similar display of heroism. A few Moderate Republicans voted against the placarding of M. Ricard's speech about the recent riots in cathedrals, but they were careful not to follow it by any speeches of their own. When there is a debate about religion in the Chamber, the conduct of the Opposition is left entirely to the Deputies of the Right. Every exhibi- tion of anti-clerical violence is matched by an exhibition of pro-clerical violence, and the representatives of the Con- servative Republic take no pains to provide a middle course for the electors to follow. How is a Moderate Republican elector to give effect to his wish to see a majority in the Chamber composed of Deputies of his own way of thinking ? The candidates between whom he has to choose are very possibly a Radical Republican, and a Reactionary who is either still a Royalist, or a Republican of such recent date that he cannot wear his new uniform with either ease or grace. If the moderate elector chooses the Radical, he at least knows that his representative will not do anything to bring back the system whose traditions are so distasteful to him. If he chooses the Reactionary, he has no assurances upon this head, and for want of it, he either stays away from the poll altogether, or votes for the Radical. It is not safe to infer from the conduct of an elector when neither candidate is to his mind, that be would act in the same way if a third candidate were in the field who more exactly reproduced his opinions. If Moderate Republicanism is to be a reality in France, it must take visible shape in the persons of Moderate Republican candidates. A party which does not take the trouble to be represented either on the hustings or in popular journalism, must either have no faith in its own future, or cherish an overweening conviction of its own inevitable victory.
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