t of France has been paying another tardy The Prince
Preside tions formed from his Communistic essay tribute to the expect- f Ham on "the Extinction of Pauperism"; written in the prison s recently acknowledged as cognate to that of Mr. J. 31. Morg since, Louis Napoleon put down his name for self villages on cooperative a project which he h f- principles. Not lo is money—to the scheme for establishing —not, they say, I he now introduces into the Legislature a pro- " cites ouvrieres "; a " bank of mutual aid"; which seems to be ject for establishin e English savings-bank and the all-supplying a cross between ti dhon. People will naturally suspect that the bank of M. Pr a form, not to disappoint the expectations of the scheme is merel Communists. is- Meanwhile, ouis Napoleon's Minister, General d'FIautpoul, is- to the Police minutely instructing them in the sues a circula rsal espionage and surveillance, especially against duties of univ people who would carry out the principles which the Socialists, esident professes. The Police are to watch and re- the Prince P tly. This document has got abroad accidentally, port incessa ations are very ugly. It signifies that there is some and its indi is general vigilance, and the reason it is not difficult reason for t e. A dispute has been going on for some time as to to conjectu f voting in Parliamentary elections—by cantons, as at the mode
present, or by communes : it is observed that the cantonal plan tends to defeat the extension of the suffrage, by imposing upon its exercise the penalty of a journey to the polling-place: and to this is attributed the progressive decline in the number of votes at successive elections. But more extensive reasons must help to keep away the Frenchman from the business-bolyday of the polling, and that is probably similar to the one which prevails among the people of Germany. The people has been disappointed by all parties, and is undergoing a fit of sulky indifference, Moreover, Communist doctrines, always spreading wider and wider, in their usual forms incline the people to regard mere po- litical movements with indifference, as such movements would be swallowed up by the thorough social change of any Communist revolution. This state of feeling, which is attested in France by some other pregnant facts, would account at once for the di- minishing numbers at the elections, and for the official alarms indicated in M. d'Hautpoul's instructions to the Gendarmerie.
It is at such a time that France is ruled by a Government which relies, not frankly and implicitly on its own collected power and the sanction of the people, but on the espionage and machinations of a police !
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