M. DE FREYCINET'S SCHEME OF POLICY.
THE first difficulty is to decide whether M. de Freycinet's declaration of policy, which appeared on Saturday, is an Opportunist programme drawn out in Radical phrases, or a Radical programme hidden in words intended not to affront Opportunist susceptibilities. If the former is the case, it means very little indeed ; but if the latter, it points to a definite policy, which may not succeed—as we think, will not succeed—but which has serious objects. We incline to believe that the second is the truer view, for three reasons which seem to us unanswerable. Firstly, M. Clemenceau and his followers have announced themselves satisfied, and they are not the kind of men to be contented with words. A French Radical has many foibles, but the foible of confidence in smooth phrases is not usually among them. He is by nature, as well as through experience, the most suspicious of human beings. Secondly, M. de Freycinet would never have levelled his threat at the Church if he had not been prepared for a Radical line of action. And thirdly, he would not have promised economies in the military expenditure, which are sure to be ill received by the Army, already discontented with the mismanagement of the Colonial expeditions. If this view is correct, M. de Freycinet, under cover of moderate words, proposes to pursue three distinctly Radical lines of policy, two of them unwise, and the third, though most wise, by no means certain to be either successful or popular. He is about to continue and to extend that ostracism of all who cannot like the Republic, which of all policies tends most surely to deepen and widen the cleavage already so deep and wide between French parties, by dismissing all officials who sided with the Reactionary Members. " Certain officials," he says, " through a remarkable confusion of ideas, have come to the pass of considering themselves exempt from all obligations towards the State beyond the discharge of their professional duties." They must be taught " that the liberty of opposing the Government "—not, be it noted, the Republic—" does not exist for the servants of the State." That means that all officials who do not bestir themselves for the party in power will be weeded out, that all civil servants desirous of promotion are required to be propagandists, and that those belonging to the " ancient parties" will be gradually dismissed. Such a policy, even in England, would make parties very bitter ; but in France, where there are five hundred thousand holders of civil employments, and where a post in the State service is the aspiration of every family, it will make them irreconcilable. The tendency of the very best " civilians " in France is to be Orleanists, and their ostracism only tends to alienate all moderate men. It is nonsense to say that it is necessary. The State work can be done by men who do not accept the dominant opinions ; and the late Emperor found, when his hour came, that the army of convinced or purchased Bonapartists with whom he had crowded all departments could not protect his throne. This policy is most unwise, and so is the threat held out to the Church. It is, plainly, that "if the clergy will intervene in political contests," they will " provoke a brusque rupture," which will force on the Government " the problem of Church and State," and lead, it is everywhere understood, to the summary suppression of the Budget of Public Worship. That threat can have no effect, except to exasperate still further the clergy and their friends, who, again, will not be soothed by the statement that even in ordinary times the Government " will know how to keep a tight hand, in order that the rights of civil society may be scrupulously respected." As the clergy are doing nothing, except voting and speaking according to their consciences, all that is either vague menace of a most irritating kind, or a definite threat that if the Church will not be passive, the Church shall be starved. Language of this kind does not cow the Bishops, who know that their friends return a third of the Deputies, while it gravely increases the difficulty of finding a mocha rivendi between the Republic and the Church.
It is pleasanter to pass to M. de Freycinet's wiser counsels. He really wishes, to all appearance, to put the finances straight, and is only weak in his suggestion of means. He admits that deficits have been continual, he acknowledges that the country insists on an "equilibrium " in the Budget, and he promises three serious reforms. In the first place, there will be " no more of these distant expeditions, which are for the country a source of sacrifices the compensation for which does not always clearly appear." France " must concentrate her forces on the Continent, in order to be respected by all, without being, a menace to any." The Opportunist policy of Colonial expansion. is, in fact, to be abandoned, and that source of indefinite expenditure abruptly closed. In the second place, though France " will retain the possessions recently acquired," she will change them into Proctectorates, and organise them " upon bases of an extremely simple character," so that ex- penditure upon them will be at once reduced one-half, and finally disappear. In the third place, the Military Budget, which now weighs so heavily upon the Treasury, will be decidedly reduced. If these economies do not suffice, there must be " readjustments of taxation," or even in future years new methods of taxation of a more "democratic "kind. All that is in its object sound, but it will hardly secure a genuine public approbation, for it is weak and insufficient. To esta- blish a real "equilibrium" in the Budget, after funding the huge Floating Debt, the Treasury requires a saving of at least ten millions sterling a year ; and if M. de Freycinet screws two out of the Ministries of War and the Interior, he will perform a great feat ; while his project for the govern- ment of Indo-China; though it might save two millions more, is essentially illusory. He does not conquer, and he does not retire ; and, consequently, his Colonial Budget must be fixed not by the necessities of the Treasury, but by the movements of the Indo - Chinese. If they rebel, the Government in Paris must send reinforcements, and all experience proves- that Protectorates only invite insurrection. The Residents affront popular feeling as much as Governors would, while they do not tranquillise the people by securing them good government. The Anawese Mandarins, through whom M. Paul Bert talks of governing, will either take the first opportunity of rebelling, or they will use the dreadful power which Asiatic satraps derive from the support of a civilised army to drive the people into insurrection by exactions. Macaulay years ago pointed to that as the most evil of all possible forms of government, and it is also, fortunately for the world, the one which most irritates its victims. We see little hope for the French Treasury from these, projects ; nor, in truth, does M. de Freycinet, for his allusion to democratic taxation points to a coming Income-tax ; and he is reported to be already studying a project for raising a large extra revenue by monopolising the trade iu spirits, as the State already monopolises the trade in tobacco and in lucifer-matches. We have no special objection to raise against either scheme ; but the Income-tax will irritate every property-owner in France, where men dread the envy of their neighbours, yet dare not trust to secret returns ; and the Spirit-duty is not a reduction, but an increase to the burdens of the people. We fear M. de Freycinet will find that, although he may secure a majority, his programme will dissatisfy the people ; that the new taxation he dreads will speedily be inevitable—for the regular revenue is falling fast—and that its imposition will be the signal for a Conservative movement, amid which the Republic will either fall or be transmuted into a Dictatorship.
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