BOOKS.
THE FRENCH POLITICAL PROBLEM.* WE have in this work a most lucid, able, impartial, and com- prehensive treatment of the political situation in France. Mr. Bodley tells us in hie introduction that he has availed himself during a, residence of some seven years in France of every
• France. By John B iward Courtenay Bogey. 2 vole. London: Macmillan
mei 00. (Mal source of information to which he could obtain access or which would be of value to him in his self-imposed task. He seems to have studied every work on French politics produced since the Revolution, he has assiduously read the leading French newspapers and even the more obscure ones, he has frequented all classes of French society, from the inhabitants of aristocratic chateaux and leaders of culture to the homes of the peasants and bourgeoisie, and he has traversed and stayed in most parts of rural France, knowing, as he does, how utterly futile is the notion that Paris represents France, as so many persons in England suppose. The outcome of these patient studies is the production of a work which may be compared with Taine's study of England or Mackenzie Wallace's study of Russia,—a veritable aperpu of the French Government, and of the political instincts of the mass of the French people. Whatever may be our opinion of the views put forward by the author, we think no reader of this work will doubt for one moment that he has before him a competent and genuine survey, by a trained political thinker, of the situation of the France of to-day so far as its political con- ditions are concerned. We shall tell in as brief form as possible the diagnosis of that situation as given by this very able writer, but space will prevent us from fully dealing with all the points raised in his work.
Mr. Bodley begins by asking whether France has realised any one of the great formulae of the Revolution,—liberty, equality, and fraternity. His answer is that she has not. He doubts whether the Revolution really aimed at liberty, which had attained to considerable proportions before the outbreak of 1789. Already the peasantry had been largely emanci- pated, thought was free, many of the chief abuses and privileges of the ancien regime had been cut down. Mr. Bodley accepts the view taken by Taine in his " Origins," and seeks to strip the Revolution of that grandiose view expressed by Lamartine when he called it "a data in the human mind." The solid result of the Revolution was to bring into the field that great warrior whose political work, according to our author, was of far more lasting importance than the hundred battles which be fought and won. The impartial critic will perhaps accuse Mr. Bodley of attributing to Napoleon more than he actually accomplished. At any rate, the view here taken is that to Napoleon is due the great fabric of law and administration which is the chief strength and glory of modern France. It is held that the political genius of the French people tends towards excessive centralisation, that Napoleon understood that fact, and that he set up a centralised system under which alone France can live in peace, or if not in peace, at least in security, in dignity, and in content. The fault, on the other hand, of all that has been attempted since the Restoration is that successive attempts have been made to undo the work of Napoleon, whether in 1830, in 1848, or by the present Republic, in establishing institutions unsuitable to the French genius. In a word, France has been misguided in looking across the Channel to England for a system of Parliamentary govern- ment utterly incapable of being worked by the French mind.
This is really the theme of the work,—the impossibility of any system of Parliamentary government satisfying the French people. The foreigner looks on at France, amazed at the kaleidoscopic changes that take place, at the strange and swift succession of Ministries the names of whose heads are forgotten, at the chaos of the Chamber, at the groups which form and re-form in startling suddenness, at the abuse lavished by opponents on one another, and he thinks that the French people must be either given over to the gravest faults, or that democracy has no chance in France. Mr. Bodley aims at showing to such observers what it is that is wrong. It is not democracy that is at fault ; that is to say, it is not the essence of the democratic doctrine—" the tools to him who can handle them "—that accounts either for the chaotic nature of politics or the mediocrity of the politicians. He has little difficulty in showing that in the days of the July Monarchy, with the moat brilliant group of politicians the world has ever known, there was just the same instability which is now deplored. Although up to 1848 the mass of the French people had no votes, yet when in that year universal suffrage was adopted, the newly enfranchised voters sent to the Chamber a host of able and high-minded men. So far as political morality is concerned, though scandals of a grave character have recently come before the world, yet the average French voter is more pure than the average English voter. Indeed, of the mass of French citizens Mr. Bodley speaks in high terms. No more honest or sensible men are, he says, to be found in Europe, and he declares that Zola's picture of the peasantry is a foul libel. It is not the Republic per as that is responsible for the low ebb to which French politics have sunk. The fault of every regime tried since the yoke of the old Monarchy was thrown off, except those of the two Empires, has been the attempt to imitate the Parliamentary system of England. The present Constitution of 1875 is of all these attempts the most impossible. It was deliberately planned on English lines, and it has utterly failed. Why should such an excel- lent system which has aided the stability of England work out chaos in France P The English Constitution implies a watchful public spirit, a balancing of interests, and a resulting party system. In France there is no public spirit, there is no harmonious balance of interests, and there is not, and can never be, any party system like that of England or America. The French call out passionately for some strong government which can keep things in order, which can make France respected abroad, and which can gratify the nation's love for splendour and success. Local self-govern- ment and public supervision, to which we in England owe the peculiar nature of our constitutional growth, have no attrac- tion for the French mind. In Mr. Bodley's judgment, the institutions founded by Napoleon, highly centralised, pro- viding for an admirable and powerful administrative system, independent of political changes, are what France not only desires, but also what she needs, all successful institutions being the outcome of national character. From amid the chaos and bloodshed of the Revolution Napoleon was able to construct a system that has outlived his conquests, and, in our author's judgment, the strong part of the French system, which enables France to go on regardless of the transitory occupants of the Elysee and the Palais Bourbon, is that centralised machinery of administration which England would not tolerate for a week. It is shown how, by ignoring this fundamental fact, the political affairs of France are thrown into the hands of cliques and coteries who do not represent the solid interests of the country. In short, the true remedy for France lies in abandoning the Parliamentary system and in re-establishing some form of personal govern- ment. Such is the general moral which we are called on to draw by Mr. Bodley.
When, however, we ask what this regime shall be, the author can hardly tell us. Apparently Monarchy has no chance. It is true that the Monarchical party had the ball at its feet in 1875, for a large majority of those who made the present Con- stitution were either of the Orleanist or Legitimist faction. But one of the most interesting parts of this work is the exposure of the folly and incapacity of the Monarchical groups. The choice seems, therefore, to lie in the direction of Bonapartism. But the Bonapartist party is now the smallest of all, such a veteran as M. Paul de Cassagnac having lost his seat in a former Imperialist district to advanced Republicanism. But with the advent of the centenaries of the great Napoleonic victories and the perfectly genuine regard (as Mr. Bodley thinks it) for the Russian alliance which makes for Im- perialism, it cannot be said that the chances of a re- vival of Bonapartism are altogether hopeless. At any rate, by whatever name it comes, Mr. Bodley is of opinion that the coming revolution in France will transform the Re- public in the direction of Cnsarism. We do not gather that the author expects any fighting in the streets, any deeds of blood on a great scale, but that he simply feels, from a com- prehensive study of France, that nine men out of every ten would welcome the reign of what the Americans call "one- man power," and that such a solution of the problem is the sole solution suited to the genius of the French people.
Such being the main idea of Mr. Bodley's work, it remains to say that it contains an admirable account of the depart- mente of government, of the various parties now in existence, and that it presents through every page a most luminous exposition not alone of the politics but of the temper, feeling, and genius of the French people. Mr. Bodley loves France, though the Englishman wedded to our own Parliamentary systemmay think the diagnosis of France scarcely warrants an adliring attitude towards the people of that country. But in the study of comparative politics we are called on to lay aside national prejudices, and to see things as they are, not as we would have them be. It is useless to deny that the Parliamentary system of England is un- suited not only to France, but to most Continental States. A not dissimilar analysis might perhaps be made of modern Italy, where the little groups of jobbing and intriguing Deputies excite either contempt or indifference. We are learning that institutions are the growths of soils, and that it is impossible to change these products of national genius as one changes one's coat. A wide gulf separates England from the Continent,—much wider than the physical gulf. French doctrinaires have not seen this fact, not since the days of Montesquieu, to whose powerful work, in which he praises the Constitution of England, Mr. Bodley attributes in no small degree the mistakes that have been made of trying to reproduce on French soil the old and unique Parliamentary institutions of England. Mr. Bodley, therefore, knowing France well, can admire the character of most French people, whom he regards as in some not unimportant respects the superior of the English, while yet being con- vinced that in the political realm they have not the capacity for working the kind of institutions which we have evolved. We confess we do not like the prospect before France, if the predictions made by Mr. Bodley are fulfilled; but we have little doubt that his view is largely right, and that, by whatever name it is called, some kind of strong per- sonal government will replace the Parliamentary Republic. The great problem will be to prevent such a. government from aiming once more at mere military rule, and that is a problem of education to which serious Frenchmen should address themselves.
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