It is curious that a speech of M. Jules Ferry's,
delivered in the Vosges as long ago as Sunday week, was not reported even in Paris till yesterday week, and did not, of course, reach England except by way of Paris. And yet it was a remarkable speech in its way. There are not many of the members of the existing Government who speak as well as M. Ferry. The chief subject of his speech was a defence of the Republic against the Reactionaries, though M. Jules Ferry was wise enough to drop any attempt to defend the Republic against itself, for he made no allusion at all to the expulsion of the Orleans Princes, for which he did not attempt to offer any apology. He was probably greatly ashamed of what had been done. He held, however, that the Republic had shown greater tenacity of purpose than the recent French Monarchies. The second Republic put down the Socialist revolt in 1848, and the third put down the Com- munist revolt in 1871; while Charles X.'s and Louis Philippe's Governments fell at once before the first breath of popular wrath. As for the instability of the various Republican Administrations, he asked whether they changed more rapidly than English Administrations have changed lately. And as for incapacity in foreign expeditions, had there been any incapacity in the expeditions of the Republic to compare with the incapacity shown in the Mexican expedition of Louis Napoleon ? All this has great weight. But when M. Jules Ferry went on to re- proach the third Empire with its Free-trade policy, and to take credit to his own Administration for its policy of protecting agriculture, he illustrated very effectively one of the chief weaknesses of the Republican Government,—its disposition to indulge the people with false hopes of getting rich by robbing themselves with one hand in order to repay themselves with the other.
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