considerable intervals. Only about ever their composition and whatever fifty whites live here, of which three or circumstances had given them birth, four are women. The town is much more picturesquely situated than Bulawayo, with pretty hills all round; but the veldt itself close by is ugly just now, the grass being short and eaten of locusts, and with scarcely any bush. From The Contemporary Review. always found themselves fulfilling the same task, contending against the dangers, real or imaginary, of clerical intrigue, reorganizing the army on the principle of shorter and shorter universal service, pushing forward public education, and especially compulsory and secular elementary education, carrying out a long programme of extensive public works-in particular, THE POLITICAL SITUATION IN FRANCE. completing the railway system — and, BY GABRIEL MONOD. lastly, pursuing a commercial policy of THE general elections of 1893 and the which the two essential points were tragic death of President Carnot have protectionist tariffs and the developwrought a very perceptible change in ment of the colonial empire of France. the course of French politics. During At the same time these ministries, in the entire period from the election of order to keep their places at all, were M. Grévy in 1879 to the elections of obliged, in the choice of their adminis1893, the prevailing system was that trative officers, to distribute promotion which is called the "policy of concen- with the utmost skill amongst the diftration." Republicans of all shades ferent portions of their unstable masought to act together, in order to fight jority; and as the ministers came against any possible return to power of mostly from the Moderate party, but the Clerical and Conservative party, or could only continue in office by the to resist an immediate danger such as favor of the Radicals, it followed that the Boulangist movement. The Gam- the share of patronage obtained by the bettist or Opportunist party always Radicals for their clients was much formed the kernel of these hybrid and larger than was justified by the Radical ephemeral majorities, which comprised strength either in the country or in deputies of the most diverse opin- the Chambers. An administration thus ions, ranging from the edge of the brought together on personal grounds Centre party to the summit of the Ex- and unable to reckon on the life of any treme Left. The heterogeneous com- ministry, could not of course attend to position of the ministries forbade any anything but how to manage all the long tenure of power. As their pro- groups at once, and, above all, how to grammes were nothing but compromises secure the favor of influential electors to which each section of the Republi- and deputies. That is why the admincan party sacrificed its most character-istration showed such strange weakistic aims, the moment soon arrived ness, not to speak of secret connivance, when dissatisfaction broke out, and in the face of Boulangism, a weakness members of the same Cabinet were at issue with each other; and as there was no settled majority, acting under recognized leaders, personal ambitions, jealousies, and lobby intrigues led to ministerial changes, although it was perfectly well known that the new ministry would be very like the old. Thus a series of Cabinets were constructed, one after the other, in which generally most of the members of the last ministry were again assembled under a new chief, and which, what so great as to lead to grave fears of its success; and, what is still more important, displayed a culpable remissness in dealing with the most serious electoral frauds, such as those committed in the Parliamentary and municipal elections at Toulouse. The characters of the two presidents of the republic who held office from 1879 to 1894 were particularly favorable to the policy of concentration. M. Grévy, while he showed real wisdom and keen intelligence in following and The principal of these causes was the collapse of the Boulangist movement, which commenced in 1889 with the flight of the general to Belgium and his condemnation by the Senate, sit guiding, so far as the Constitution | and that the time had come for the allowed him to do so, the foreign policy ministry to be formed of men of like of France, carried the practice of in- views, associated for the purpose of difference and abstention in home carrying out a definite programme, and affairs so far as to neglect even his unhesitatingly supported by a majority representative duties as head of the which they directly represented. Many State, thinking of nothing but how to causes combined to give this new direcincrease his fortune by saving out of tion to Parliamentary affairs, which his allowances, and letting his son-in- began with the breaking up of old law, M. Wilson, exert an improper party divisions. influence over the distribution of places and favors. M. Carnot, who filled the office of president with so much dignity and correctness, confined himself, of his own will, to performing his external representative duties and to the ting as a High Court of Justice, and task of making the supreme power was completed by the failure of his respected for his virtues and loved for partisans at the elections of the same his charities. He had belonged to the year, and, finally, by the melancholy Radical party; and as personally he suicide of the tragi-comic hero. Bouhad no confidence in any one except langism had carried with it a large two somewhat mediocre Radicals, MM. number of members of the Extreme Tirard and Sarrien, he could not imag- parties, and even not a few Socialists. ine any other policy than that of con- Nearly all the Monarchists and Bonacentration. It must be admitted further partists had been its secret or avowed that circumstances rendered this policy accomplices, and had been compelled, almost inevitable from the moment in order to conceal their faint hopes of when the Parliamentary Right took up a Restoration, to pretend to rally to the an attitude so openly hostile to the idea of a new Republic, of which Bourepublic that the most moderate Re- langer was to be the head. On the publicans were unable to join them, morrow of the defeat, the discovery of while the Extreme Left showed too the scandalous bargain which had been little coherence or practical sense for struck between the Comte de Paris and the Opportunists to arrange with them the general threw into utter confusion any common plan of action. It must all these men who had conspired to also be recognized that under such make up a party without principle conditions these successive Cabinets, and without programme, dissembling so always new and yet always similar, many contradictory hopes which they these floating majorities, made up in durst not avow. The blow fell with the whole a kind of nondescript gov- the greatest force upon the mass of ernment, compelled to avoid any ex- honest Conservatives, who saw the treme measure, either of a reactionary cause of monarchy fatally comproor revolutionary kind, and humbly to mised, and were now disposed to prefer follow every breath of popular opinion. the Parliamentary Republic, with cerMeanwhile the local administration, in tain guarantees, to such futile and unspite of its defects, was kept going by dignified adventures. its almost historic traditions of order and probity, as well as by that sense of professional duty which a public function naturally creates in its occupant. The Republicans, on the other hand, began to perceive that the Parliamentary system, as it had up to that time been carried on, was falling into discredit with the mass of the voters, in Ever since the general election of whose eyes it appeared not as a regular 1893 this situation has been utterly contest of parties and opinions, but as changed. It was clearly perceived that a club of self-interested individuals inthe period of concentration was over, tent on nothing but place and power. the system They deemed it essential to have done some having played the part of acwith concessions and compromises cusers and others that of accused. which only served to band together The Panama affair did not prevent most men who differed profoundly in prin- of the Opportunists from keeping their ciple, and to form, instead, parties seats at the 1893 elections representing schools of opinion and of scrutin d'arrondissement making it definite views. difficult to effect sudden changes in the The attitude taken up by Pope Leo distribution of parliamentary strength XIII. towards the Republican govern--but it certainly helped on the partial ment also tended to facilitate the re- success of the Socialists and of a cerdistribution of the old parties. His tain number of "Ralliés.” Italian subtlety, his statesmanlike in- This rise of a Socialist party in the sight, and his severe impartiality, ena- Chamber was one of the characteristic bled him to perceive that the Church features of the elections of 1893, and had everything to lose and nothing to contributed more than anything else to gain by remaining committed to mo- the downfall of the policy of concentranarchical ideas without a future; that tion. Former Chambers had contained the Catholics had everything to gain some three or four representatives of by loyally accepting the republic, and revolutionary Socialism; but they were taking their proper place in it; and altogether isolated, and scarcely dared that Moderate Republicans would be to raise their voice. Some few of the quite disposed, in face of the attacks of Radicals, indeed, called themselves Extremists, to accept the alliance of Socialist, but their Socialism was of a the "Ralliés," provided that they vague and general kind, which formuwould be content with claiming justice lated no precise demands, and did not and good-will, without seeking to over-embarrass either its professors or those throw the laws and institutions which who accepted them as temporary allies. were the foundations of the republic. The view of Leo XIII. has been justified by the result. The party of reaction was instantly shattered; a large body of Republicans have abandoned the attitude of surly distrust of the Catholics which they had hitherto held, and have shown a disposition to accept in some degree the aid of this right wing which has suddenly come to enlarge their ranks. Besides, it had been for some years the fashion among politicians seeking popularity, or wanting to improve the condition of the laboring classes, to call themselves Socialists, without attaching any exact meaning to the word. But in 1893 there appeared in the Chamber a group of some fifty true Socialists, openly professing Collectivist doctrines and the definite object of changing the very bases on which soAgain, the Panama affair brought a cial order has rested in France since new element to aid in the dislocation the Revolution of 1789, and plainly of parties. Although it has proved proposing to make the regular action of impossible to say exactly on whom parliamentary government impossible rested the responsibility or the actual guilt, the result has been to destroy absolutely the credit, the force, and the cohesion of the old Opportunist group, which for years had in reality had the guidance of the republic. Some members of the party, in Parliament and in the press, have been directly compro-and enthusiastic such as Jean Jaurès. mised. Public opinion has thrown a general though vague discredit on almost every one who took any part in the business; and violent animosities have sprung up within the group itself, by means of a system of relentless opposition, permanent obstruction, and furious attacks, shrinking from no scandal and no calumny. This Socialist group contains educated and convinced theorists such as Jules Guesde, and orators of an eloquence both logical It has drawn into its sphere all the most advanced of the old Radical party, which finds in Socialism, more or less explicit, an electoral platform. The formation of this new Extreme Left party, with which neither compromise | doctrines a law stigmatized as crimnor concentration was possible, which, inal by the Socialists and a section of indeed, rejected all thought of compro- the Radicals — proved a true touchmise, could not but drive the Moderate stone, distinguishing the governmental Republicans to form a compact group, Republicans from those who remained submitting to strict discipline under faithful to the old idea of concentrarecognized leaders, and so dispose them tion, or who aimed at revolution. to seek at need the alliance of the "Ralliés" in struggling with their enemies. After the Lyons catastrophe, as I have said, the feeling strongly prevailed in Parliament that it was essenThe Anarchist crimes also hastened tial to form a government with a fixed the new grouping of political forces. programme, and pledged energetically Anarchism had long been considered to repress all revolutionary tendencies. as a sort of mental disease, affecting a The election of M. Casimir-Périer as few fanatical theorists, like M. Elisée president of the republic in the place Reclus, or Prince Kropotkin, but ex- of M. Carnot was a striking proof of tending only to some very small sets of this feeling. He was selected on acworkmen or ruffians. But the series of count of his name, his great social posioutrages, which began with the exploits tion, and the governing ability which of Ravachol, followed by the explo- he had shown in his brief tenure of sions in the Restaurant Véry, the the presidency of the Council. He was Chamber of Deputies, and the Café great-grandson of one of the members Terminus, and ended in the assassina- of the Constituent Assembly of 1789, tion of President Carnot in the midst whose castle of Vizille was the cradle of the Lyons fêtes, brought to light the of the Revolution in Dauphiné; he extraordinary spread of the ravages was grandson of the well-known minmade by this doctrine, which is all the ister of Louis Philippe, who, in the more formidable that it will not bear course of a short term of office, had discussion, that it has the character of succeeded in re-establishing the presan unreasoning faith, and that it satis-tige of France in Europe by means of fies at the same time the extreme im- the expeditions to Italy and Belgium, pulses of Individualism and the most in laying down sound principles of extravagant dreams of Socialism. Al- Parliamentary and Liberal government, though the Socialists, imbued with the and in repressing revolutionary inidea of the omnipotent State, sole pro-trigues. He was the son of a minister prietor and dispenser of wealth, are of M. Thiers, and had himself served naturally hostile to Anarchist ideas, with distinction in the war of 1870. If their diatribes against society and the M. Carnot, grandson of a member of existing order of government make the Committee of Public Safety, and them propagators, and almost accom- son of a minister of the republic of plices of Anarchism. Their principal 1848, represented the austerest side of organ, La Petite République, with its incessant and furious attacks upon all the representatives of authority, might well be treated as an auxiliary to the proper Anarchist organs, such as Le Père Peinard. It would be true to say that to the battle against the Socialists and Anarchists is due the formation of that great party of "Governmental Republicans," which immediately after the elections of 1893 set to work to establish a stable majority, led by a homogeneous ministry. The voting of the law against Anarchist intrigues and the Republican tradition, M. CasimirPérier stood for the Liberal Parliamentary tradition of France for a century back, and seemed well fitted finally to reconcile the disillusionized Conservatives to the Republican flag. His wealth, his personal distinction, and that of his wife, his relations with the highest society of Paris, marked him out as specially able to give éclat to the highest office of the State, and to continue the example of generosity and charity set by M. Carnot. Lastly, the choice of a man who had been a recog nized party leader seemed to indicate a | his attitude, something curt and impedesire to confer on the president of the rious in his way of speaking, and his republic some personal right of initia- dread of everything which could be tive in the government, to encourage him to go beyond the mere position of an impartial arbitrator between parties, such as M. Carnot had been, and to make use of all his Constitutional powers for the support of the government majority in the Chamber in any settled and moderate course of policy which it had resolved to follow. M. Casimir-Périer did not seem so well convinced as were his supporters that his removal from party strife to the presidency was the wisest course. He felt himself fitter to be the fighting chief of a Cabinet than to go to the Elysée and play the part of a mere representative, and incur the charge of exceeding his functions if he in any way intervened directly in politics. But the current of public opinion was so strong that he could not decline what was presented to him as a duty. He was the less disposed to evade the task that on the morrow of the death of M. Carnot it seemed to carry with it great peril, and that he was already the object of the most atrocious menaces. "In the face of danger," his brave mother said to him, a Périer never hesitates." 66 How is it that seven months after he had accepted office, with all its difficulties in full view, M. Casimir-Périer had thrown it up, and risked the accusation of inconsistency and weakness? mistaken for ostentation or advertise- In the first place, people had completely deceived themselves as to the happy effect likely to be produced by having at the Elysée a man of the name, the position, and the character of M. Casimir-Périer. If in the eyes of Europe the new president carried a prestige which neither M. Grévy nor M. Carnot had enjoyed, it was not the same in France. There M. Périer had no particular reputation beyond that section of the bourgeois class which is sincerely attached to the republic; and even among them his personal record There was illusion also as to the true was not well enough known to bring strength of Moderate ideas and the him any very lively feelings of devo- possibility of constructing a really tion. Owing to a certain stiffness in homogeneous majority in the Chamber. |