LABOUR AND VIOLENCE IN FRANCE.
NGLISHMEN lately returned from Paris tell us that respectable French people are alarmed at the frequency and viciousness of Labour riots, shake their heads at the signs of the times, and speak of another revolution. Of course we have no right to set up our judgment against that of the people who live on the spot, and presumably know their country much better than we do ; but we cannot help feeling, though we do no more than oppose instinct to evidence, that there will be no revolution. Paris would not be Paris if it were not on the verge of one; it generally has been ; and wo have come to understand that in that clear atmosphere of quick and vivid thought things seem much nearer than they are. Tho persons who are most apprehensive of a general upheaval are those who do least to check it by putting their brains and character at the service of the State. For them we can have no great sympathy. The recent signs of dis- content and resentment are ugly enough, we admit, but our chief reason for believing that the Third Republic will survive and prosper for a long time to come is that there is nothing which could reasonably be substituted for it. There is not a pretender to the throne who commands the respect of a large part of the people, and there is not one of them but receives a regular tribute of ridicule, which kills Royal claims as easily as it kills other things. France, no doubt, often looks round for a saviour ; the .N' importe-guistes have left a certain recognisable philosophy behind them. But those who appear as candidates for the saviourship have a short vogue as a rule, and the unpopularity which eclipses them is much more effective than the yeasty enthusiasm which set them on the pinnacle of a moment. Without a, leader of serious aim—revolu- tions, after all, are serious things—a mob can do nothing. It will blow out its fury like a gale on a barren coast, and leave matters just as they were. We do not appreciate the need of a, saviour either. M. Clemenceau seems to us a very good saviour, who has conducted the country through we forget how many crises with coolness, wit, and—which is the proof of the whole business—complete success.
Last Sunday Paris received a peculiar shock, because it discovered that no department of life was safe from the invasion of mob violence. Who could have supposed that a race-meeting would be the scene of iucendiarism, sabotage, and highwayism ? Yet so it was, and the most disagree- able aspect of the phenomenon was that a large part of the rioters had not any real motive for rioting. They joined in a riot which had already begun they know not why. The lads and stablemen of the great training establish. ments at Maisons-Laftitte, who want to have their S yndicat or Union recognised by their employers, seem to have had nothing to do with the violence. The violence was begun by navvies, armed with revolvers, who were mobilised by the General Confederation of Labour and carried out their operations on the high road. As for the rioters on the course itself, they broke into savagery only because the races were delayed two hours through the horses being held up on the road by the mercenaries of the Confedera- tion. That, perhaps, is the worst symptom in the case : that men who had a very trifling grievance should burn property, assault the officers riding in a military steeple- chase, and shatter the offices of that organised gambling institution, the Pari-Mutuel (of which the best function is that it gives a large sum to the poor after every race- meeting), and all this without stopping to inquire whether any one in authority ought to be blamed. If that was the most discouraging symptom, the incursion of the General Confederation of Labour into the racing world was the most curious. It was rather as though the Amalgamated Society of Engineers should appear at Lord's and devastate the ground during a Test Match in order to call attention to some industrial dispute. We do not suppose the malcontents of Maisons-Laffitte (who are mostly boys, and who, for all we know, are making very just demands) particularly wanted to make common cause with the General Confederation, but the Confederation " took on the job " because it saw a chance of creating panic among a class of people naturally unprepared and timid. The characteristic of all the Labour troubles lately in France has been that there was no definite goal to be reached by a regular foreseen process ; the policy, if it can be called one, was simply to produce a chaos and see whether any advantage could be plucked out of it. The General Confederation of Labour by successive failures has lost a good deal of its prestige, or rather of its power to make itself feared ; and it was glad of an opportunity to prove that it had not ceased to be terrible. Hence the navvies with their revolvers led by the Pistol-like Pataud, the King of the Electricians, who was particularly glad to prove that he was a man of action, and not only a man of words, as his friends were gravely beginning to think.
We fancy that when the wonder of these strange riots has passed the General Confederation will have to try some other way of re-establishing itself. Wo should advise a period of self-examination. It is split at present into two parties,—that which is frankly and immediately revolutionary, and that which wishes to leave such fruitful policies as general strikes and universal industrial paralysis till the time when the country has been educated up to them. The secretary, M. Niel, the other day advised his committee not to order a general strike because he knew well that the control of the Confederation over the various Unions is merely nominal—an act of assertion which is positively resented by many Unions—and that many of those Unions which do owe allegiance to the Confederation did not in the least want a general strike, and would refuse to bring it about. The Hotspurs of the committee were very angry with M. Niel, and caused him to resign. But so far no one has been found worthy or willing (we cannot say which) to take his place, and be has continued to act as secretary. Why should not the post be offered to M. Craissac, the lawyer of Maisons-Laffitte, who is secretary to the Union of the racing-stables, and who talks to the boys as though he were Denton and they the full- grown agents of a righteous war against everything as it is ? We are sure that he would do very well. But even if Chantilly comes to Maisons-Laffitte, as Birnam Wood to Dunsinane, and all the stable-boys of all the racing establishments in France declare war on the Republic, we shall still expect that the Republic will stand. As for English tourists being kept away from France by the prevalent unrest—well, we hope they will not be so foolish as to deny themselves a very great pleasure for a very insufficient reason.
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