Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 126.djvu/265

Rh conservative majority would pronounce that the state of parties made a general election dangerous to the cause of order, and with Marshal MacMahon at the head of affairs, such a declaration would be irreversible by the opposition. Instead of living under a republic which they can at least hope to mould by degrees into something more worthy of the name, the Radicals would find themselves once more under the yoke of a provisional government which would in fact, if not in intention, be preparing the way for the empire.

It is a further and a very interesting question how long the Left can be expected to maintain this attitude. It is probable that the composition of the new Chamber will be decidedly more liberal than that of the present one. If the Republicans are not in a majority, they will at any rate constitute a very much more influential minority among the deputies. Will they be as prudent under the sun of returning prosperity as they have shown themselves in the winter of adversity? If they are not, their ultimate overthrow will once more become only a question of time. The essential conservatism of the French nation, its abhorrence of communism in any form, its determination that property shall be held sacred, its distrust of any party which gives an uncertain sound on this vital question — will make it impossible for any party to keep the control of public affairs in their hands for any long period, except on condition of recognizing these fundamental conditions. Will the French Radicals consent to retain power on such terms? If their recent moderation, or the moderation of many of them, is only the result of prudence, there must come a time when they will ask themselves whether a policy which is made up of an unlimited succession of sacrifices is worth pursuing any further. To restrain themselves in order to attain a given object is one thing; to restrain themselves when that given object is perpetually removed further off is another thing. Nothing but a change of conviction, a recognition that the purposes for which they wished to attain power are no longer dear to them, an admission that they too have learned something from experience, and are no longer the men they were, can be trusted to make them the really moderate politicians they have lately shown themselves. If this change had to be undergone by the whole of the existing Left there would not be much chance of its taking effect. Wholesale conversions of this kind are rare phenomena in politics. But the process may possibly be rendered easier by a contemporaneous change in the composition of the party. Hitherto the Left has been recruited almost exclusively from the representatives of the great towns. Rural Republicanism has scarcely been recognized as having any existence. The peasantry have rarely troubled themselves about politics, and when they have done so it has been to welcome a deliverer from the alarms excited by the republic. If this state of things should prove to have come to an end, as some observers of French society believe, a new type of Republican deputy may be returned, and the Left that we know may only form the extreme wing of a larger party. M. Gambetta's authority may in that case be maintained, not so much by the conversion of his present troops as by the reconstitution of his army.

 

 From The Pall Mall Gazette.

recent letters of the Times correspondent from various Belgian cities are defaced by some of those dabs of tawdry local colour which the present taste of newspaper-readers demands from newspaper-writers, but they contain some very interesting information independently of their descriptions of old women and bagmen, and they throw light on portions of an important pamphlet which has just been translated at Mr. Gladstone's instance. M. de Laveleye, the author, repeats and enlarges upon the position first taken up by Macaulay and afterwards insisted upon by Buckle, that the great differences between the nations of the West are not so much due to distinctions of race, of institutions, or of historical antecedent, as to differences of religion. He is very far, indeed, from accepting Buckle's conclusion that, in order that a community may advance indefinitely in moral and material civilization, it is simply necessary to disbelieve religions. On the contrary, if we understand M. de Laveleye rightly, he draws a most melancholy inference from existing facts. He certainly thinks that if the principles now accepted by Catholics are carried to their consequences a certain amount of low and peaceful civilization is all that at best can be attained. But 