BOOKS.

HOW FRANCE IS GOVERNED.* WHEN the President of the French Republic becomes an author he is sure to find readers. But M. Poincare has not trusted to this certainty. He has made it doubly sure by giving us a book packed full of information not easily obtained elsewhere, and conveyed in language of remarkable and attractive simplicity. As there is no preface, it is not clear when or for whom it was written. It can hardly have been in the first months of his Presidentship, and for the year before his election the combined duties of Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs were not such as to leave him much greater leisure than he has now. There are sentences here and there which suggest that he had young readers in view, but the clearness with which every term used is explained is likely to be as useful to foreigners who have ceased to be schoolboys as to Frenchmen who still are so. How France is Governed will appeal to all who have any interest in the subject, and in that category must be included every Englishman who cares to open a book which deals with neither motoring nor golf.

When the French President describes the Government of which he is the head, and especially when he has been elected in circumstances which mark him off from his predecessors, it is inevitable that we should try to read between the lines. That is a process which M. Poincare has for the most part shown much skill in defeating. It is only here and there that be allows himself to drop a word of criticism on the institutions of which he is writing. He does this, for example, in reference to electoral procedure. He admits that the scrutin d'arrondissement has its advantages. " It puts the

deputy into very close communication with the electors; it allows the latter to know him better, and makes it easier for them to supervise the execution of their mandate." But besides mentioning the " grave drawback that it subjects the

representative to local influences and tends to make him see the interests of the country in too fragmentary a fashion," M. Poincare notes the grave difficulties that stand in the way of a change. These "are numerous and serious ; there are habits, interests, even susceptibilities to be considered. To effect the necessary reorganization we should need a great movement of public opinion like that which encouraged and

supported the legislation of 1789." Possibly the President is anxious to associate the redistribution of the constituencies with a venerated date. Otherwise it is rather an instance of comparing small things with great. Upon another matter

connected with Parliamentary elections he speaks more decidedly. " Is it just," he asks, that the representatives

"Should be selected by the bare majority of electors ? Many eminent thinkers are of opinion that it is not. Elected assemblies, being charged with the representation of the country, ought, they think, to be a reduced image of the electoral body. These Assemblies,' said Mirabeau, 'may be compared to geographical charts, which ought to reproduce all the elements of the country with their proportions, without allowing the more considerable elements to eliminate the lesser.' This is the ideal of proportional. representation."

That it is M. Poincare's ideal also we knew from his action while Prime Minister, but in France the dislike to placing the omnipotent majority under even a momentary check is almost as active as it is in England, and in both countries this

eminently needful reform may have to wait some time.

M. Poincare is more plain-spoken upon the right of ills. solution. The power vested in the President, with the

consent of the Senate, of sending the deputies back to their

constituencies

"Is the natural guarantee of the separation of the powers. A Chamber appointed for a determined time may in the course of its mandate forget the promises which it has made to the country, may disregard the interests which are confided to it, or seek to usurp powers which do not belong to it. If it were nevertheless able to continue in the fulfilment of its functions, it would present a spectacle of impotence and disorder. The better to defend itself against encroachments and abuses, the Executive power should have the resource in such cases of enforcing a fresh consultation of the electors. The use which was made of this right of dissolution in 1877 by the Government of the 16th May has somewhat dis- credited this portion of the Constitution; however, it does not deserve the unpopularity which resulted from the event in question."

• Hose France is Governed. By Raymond Foineare'. Translated ty Bernard Allan. T. Fisher Unwin. [78. Ed. net.]

Why, indeed, "unpopularity" should ever be the result of a dissolution is one of the curious contradictions in which electioneering matters are so fertile. That the members should dislike it is natural enough. The best that can happen to them is to be sent back to Parliament at con- siderable cost to themselves or to the party, and it is always possible that they may not be sent back at all. But why should the electors dislike it? It is only in the interval between a dissolution and the day of the election that they count for anything. In theory, the representative is always watching for any expression of a wish on the part of his constituents, but, in fact, be is seldom at the pains of inquiring whether they have a wish or even an opinion. It might be thought that the electors would welcome the opportunity of enlightening him upon this point, but judging from the horror which usually finds a voice at every suggestion of a dissolution much in advance of the date at which it becomes inevitable, we must suppose that the electors have somehow been persuaded that it is they, not their representative, that are on their trial. That those who have at heart the multi- plication of radical measures should wish to keep in being a Parliament which is passing laws by which they suppose themselves to benefit is natural enough. But in the most Radical constituency it is only a fraction of the electors who can reach this mental height. The remainder have every reason to be delighted with the multiplication of almost their one chance of being important. To all appearance, how- ever, they have been hypnotized into identifying their own advantage with their member's. The same blunder has been committed on a greater scale in France. The dislike of a dissolution has become general in the Republican Party because MacMabon tried one in the hope of strengthening the Monarchical Party. Instead of this he destroyed it. It is conceivable, if nothing more, that if the Chamber had been allowed to run out its term the Republicans might have tried to overthrow MacMahon's Government by some violent action which would have discredited them with sober Frenchmen. They were saved from a disaster of this sort by getting an opportunity of reaching the same ends by constitutional means. Well may M. Poincare say that the right of dissolution does not deserve the unpopularity which has resulted from MacMahon's use of it.

Nor is IL Poincare satisfied with the theory of State duties which be finds largely held among his countrymen. They "are almost invariably tempted to regard the State as a kind of Providence which ought to provide a remedy for every evil A State which distributes relief, subventions, and awards ; such is the ideal which haunts the minds of a multitude of Frenchmen. A regrettable disposition, which saps the character and enervates the will." Nothing can be more true; yet nothing seems less likely at this moment to gain attention either in France or in England. In both countries the State is regarded as a whole which is altogether distinct from its component parts. That its purse is really filled by these parts is forgotten. The wealth of the nation is supposed to have no connexion with the wealth of the individuals who make up the nation. No limit, therefore, need ever be set to taxation. If the State took every farthing that its citizens possess it would still possess ample resources from which to draw fresh supplies. It is a convenient doctrine for the tax-collector, and he may well rejoice that it finds such general acceptance. What do independence of character or energy of will matter compared with the possession of a Fortunatus' purse which can be drawn upon by every applicant?

We may take one more instance of M. Poincare's soundness of judgment. The State, he explains, does not wish primary instruction "to clash with private beliefs, whatever these may be. On the contrary, primary instruction should be neutral, in the sense that it should respect private convictions, and avoid all that might give rise to conflict in the minds of children." Nothing can be better upon paper, but the general complaint among French Catholics is that religious parents do find their private convictions disregarded by not a few teachers in the primary schools. Down to 1904 there was liberty of teaching in France. If the parent preferred to send his child to a school kept by one of the teaching Orders he was free to do so. But an Act of that year prescribed that these Orders must be abolished within ten years. Many of these schools were at once closed, some reopening under lay management. The freedom of the parent is still indeed

secured in name. "While imposing upon the father of a family the duty of imparting to his children elementary knowledge . . . the law does not compel him to send them to a public school : he can have them brought up in his own house or in a p ivate school." The liberty to choose your children's teachers for yourself is not of much value when it is accompanied by a law which practically banishes from the country everyone who is capable of giving the kind of teaching which individual parents desire. M. Poincare sees clearly the somewhat similar difficulty arising from the appointment of the teaching staff of the primary schools by the prefects. " The prefect is by habit, if not by legal intention, an official who busies himself con- siderably with politics, and it is to be deplored that anyone should suspect political motives as entering into the selection of schoolmasters." Substitute " religious " for " political," and M. Poincare may find another feature in the present educa- tional settlement which is not wholly satisfactory.

It must not be supposed that How France is Governed deals only with a small fringe of questions upon which there may be two opinions. On the contrary, it is a most interesting and valuable account of the whole framework of French administration. It is only the pardonable desire to know the President's mind upon questions which enter into current controversy that has led us to limit our exposition to these particular points.