M. TRIERS' COUNTER - MANIFESTO.
I T is strange to hear M. Thiers' voice raised, as it were, from beyond the tomb, in answer to a manifesto of Marshal MacMahon's which was not drawn up till Thiers was lying in his coffin. Yet an abler answer could hardly have been given even by one who had mused long over the Marshal's laconic, menacing, and not over-scrupulous order to the people of France to return him a majority. Thiers was always at his best when the issue he was discussing turned upon principles of plain common-sense, and did not need the application of that more ideal feeling and that more generous self-restraint which the highest treatment of the apparently conflicting interests of competing nations or governments always involves. He knew what was before his eyes ; he knew what it was im- possible to hope for ; and no one ever had greater power of making clear to others who did not know what was really before their eyes, that they were feeding their hearts on windy hopes which could not be realised. This power of M. Thiers' comes out in its fullest relief in his posthumous address to the electors of the ninth electoral division of Paris, published on Monday. In that address M. Thiers expounds, no doubt, only what every one who used his eyes might have seen ; but then every one does not use his eyes, and therefore many had not seen it, and M. Thiers was one of those who had the happy art of helping France to see what was plain, in such a way that it was not easy for Frenchmen to close their eyes again and dream that they had not seen it. Perhaps the most masterly part of the address is the careful analysis of what the Chamber of Deputies dissolved for its "radicalism "had and had not done to deserve that vague and, in France, new, reproach. If, said M. Thiers, by 64 radicalism" is meant "a certain form of the democratic spirit which would affect the civil adminis- tration, the financial regime, the military organisation, religious affairs, the reciprocal relations of the constitutional powers, the intervention of the Chambers in foreign politics, it would be necessary, no doubt, to resist it, and to resist energetically one Chamber which should permit itself to be drawn into it. But to call a Chamber Radical which does not even raise the discussion of the tax on income ; which maintains intact the duration of the time of military service ; which accords the grants to all the Churches recognised by the State, and augments notably the endowment of the Catholic Church ; which, in the presence of the condemnable acts of certain bishops, limits itself to a simple censure, while all other citizens would have incurred grave penalties for such acts,— which far from permitting itself an indiscreet interference in the politics of the State, refuses to question the Minister of Foreign Affairs,---which, far from ignoring the limits of its power, concedes to the Senate rights which England does not concede to the House of Lords, and respects scrupulously the dignity of an Upper Chamber which does not consult its dignity [qui mthiage scrupuleusement flue Chambre haute qui no la ménage pas], to call such a Chamber Radical,—no, Messieurs les Ministres, you may so call it, but you do not think it what you call it,' In that passage M. Thiers appears as the true Conservative Republican—anxious not to admit the invasion of the demo- cratic spirit in certain political domains — and, there- fore, all the more trustworthy when he gives his emphatic testimony to the Conservatism of the dissolved Chamber in resisting the innovations which the spirit of democracy might have proposed on all these heads. And certainly, to English- men, it does seem ridiculous to accuse a Chamber of Radicalism, which had resisted the popular cry for a short term of military service, which had never even proposed to throw the burdens of the country on the wealthy classes ; which had assented to ecclesiastical endowments, especially the endowment of Catholicism ; which had been almost over-anxious not to embarrass the policy of the Foreign Office, and which had meekly accepted many of the financial amendments recommended by the Senate on its own pro- posals. If that bo Radicalism, what is Conservatism ? And if that be not Radicalism, why did the Senate and Marshal MacMahon dissolve the Chamber for its Radicalism ? What M. Thiers describes as the policy of the late Assembly would, in England, be called a policy of rather timid and Conser- vative Whigs. And if Chamber after Chamber is to be dissolved, till such men as these are out-voted, by more reactionary Tories, why, then the Constitution must be a political machinery not for questioning France as to her real wishes, but for "putting her to the question,"—a very different process, which has never resulted in obtaining the truth, though often in obtaining the reply most convenient to the questioner. But, it is said, though the majority of the Chamber assented to the policy of the Senate, from fear of the results of a quarrel, yet its bias against this Conservative policy was notorious, and Marshal MacMahon dissolved it for what it would fain have done, not for what it did. Well, but what a plea is this for a practical politician,—to anticipate an offence which has not been com- mitted,—to appeal to the country on the ground of what he surmises and expects, not on the ground of what has actually happened I You might as well try a man for the crime he is meditating, instead of for what he has done or is attempting. A. more tremendous political censure can hardly be passed on the Marshal than that he appealed to the country on the ground of what he feared, and not on the ground of the actual achievements of his opponents. Why did he not wait till be could put his finger on the evidence that the Left were under- mining the Constitution ? We do not know how far political parties are or are not rational and moderate, till we see how they act under the pressure of the circumstances best adapted to make them act reasonably. Under the pressure of such cir- cumstances, the Left, whatever they wished, had acted reason- ably, and the Marshal dissolved the Chamber only because under other circumstances he felt sure they would have acted unreasonably. Was ever worse plea for an arbitrary and un- constitutional act advanced in this world ?
That part of M. Thiers' address which points out how in- variably the party which has vaunted itself the Saviour of Society in France has been the only party from which France needed to be saved,—nay, that the very proposal thus to save society had originated in a clear perception that but for the use of force everything was going against them,—will tell very powerfully on the minds of the French peasantry, who really want to terminate the exhausting regime of suspense. The Saviours of Society have in each case felt that but for some great feat of political legerdemain, their time for disappearing was come,—and so it often was, in spite of, or rather not un- frequently, in consequence of the attempt to achieve the feat. M. Thiers proved to the country in 1873 that this was so, when he surrendered power into the hands of the reaction, only to prove to them that it was quite impossible to use it ; that when they had got a Ministry favourable to the restoration of monarchy, they had no monarch to whom the monarchy could be restored. The Republic was no arbitrary invention of his, for when he was put out of the way, and the bitterest enemies of the Republic had succeeded him, the problem how to restore the monarchy remained as hope- less as ever. The Republic remained, not because those who administered affairs felt any less loathing for it than before, but because, loathe it as they might, they could get nothing with which to replace it. They became the means of proving, as it were, ex absurd°, that Monarchy was impossible. For they, the friends of Monarchy, after hawking the Crown of France about Europe in vain, had to come back to the National Assembly and scheme for an interregnum in which to compose differences far too vital ever to admit of being composed. Finally, nothing can be more masterly than M. Thiers' comment on the contrast between "the good Republic" and "the bad Republic." That was not the bad Republic, he says, which, in the midst of ruins, rebuilt the Commonwealth, re- established the Army, paid the indemnity, liberated the terri- tory, once more made France the mistress of her own destiny,— and last of all, gave her a fixed Constitution. Frenchmen might compare for themselves the France of 1876 with the Frame of 1877; France progressive, with France once more arrested in her progress, and warned that a great counter-revolution must be achieved. Under which Republic had she been the more pro- sperous,—under the Republic which meant what it said, or under that which is undermining the Constitution, and threatening the country that if it does not send back a Conservative Chamber, the Chamber must be dispensed with, and France governed by the Senate and the Chief Magistrate alone ? The only bad republic has been that which is disloyally administered,—the republic of anti-republicans. The bad republic is the republic which has no faith in itself, which when the country is con- sulted does not wish to know what the country really thinks, but denies it the ordinary means of making up its mind, interferes with the Press, interdicts the sale of newspapers, and yet allows those to speak out who openly ridicule the Con- stitution, and suggest that, the Constitution failing to yield the right result, a little complementary violence may be usefully applied to force the hand of France. The bad republic is that which refuses not merely the application of the true republican principles, but the application of all principles of constitutional liberty, even those which are recognised in all the higher class of monarchies at least as fully as in any republic. The 'bad republic' is the republic inaugurated on the 16th May by men who disbelieve not merely in a republic, but in constitutional freedom of any sort ; and the sooner that is publicly repudiated by France, the sooner will the good republic' have a chance once more. On the whole, the telling effect of M. Mien' address may be inferred not only from the disgraceful order of the Government prohibiting its sale by the newsvendors,—they evidently wish to gag their opponents, and to prevent the electors from hearing both sides of the question, so far as they can,—but from the terms of the manifesto since . put forth by the senators of the Right. That manifesto asserts that on every point the Left intend to do just what M. Thiers shows that they have not done, and what he himself would have strongly disapproved their doing. Radicalism, say the Senators of the Right, means "the ruin of all the forces of society, the disorganisation of the magistrature, of the Ad- ministration, of the Army itself, the overthrow of the financial system, the progressive duty on incomes, which is spoliation substituted for the proportional duty, which is equality in justice. It means society without religion, the Church without priests, the school without God, the nation descending from the moral height of Christian beliefs to the debasement of material- istic doctrines." That would be a very effective attack if, like M. Thiers' defence of the Left, it was supported by facts. But M. Thiers has answered it by anticipation. If that is what the majority of the Chamber are dismissed for wishing, why did not the Marshal wait till they had given effect to their wishes ? Who is to know what people wish, except by what they do ? As a matter of fact., the majority have acted in just the oppo- site sense in regard to all these matters. They have been Con- servative in their finance, Conservative in their military policy, Conservative in their Church policy, and Conservative in their deference to the wishes of the Senate. The Right, therefore, and the Marshal are judging them out of an "a priori consciousness," not by their deeds, and the Govern- ment desire to hide this cardinal element of the case from the to believe what is not true, electors. They wish the electors and to pass judgment under a mistake. Can a more discredit- able wish be formed by a Government than that ? Such a Government is hardly worthy of the worst period of French history. It is a Government, indeed, that will its held in con- tempt as long as any one reads the history of hypocritical professions and its cynical deeds.
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