M. FERRY AND THE FRENCH PEOPLE.
MJULES FERRY has never been a statesman to our
• mind. He took up the r3le of a persecutor of religion with something resembling, but only resembling, passion, at a time when it was a telling part to play, and he has not done much to reconcile us to his politi- cal character by becoming comparatively indifferent to it, now that he has reached a stage in the confidence of the French people at which it can be no longer of any use to him, and probably even injurious, to be regarded as the spokesman
of the cry against the religious orders in France. Neverthe- less, it is not altogether without satisfaction that we see any
statesman—however flagrantly opportunist he may be—taking such a position in Francs that he can afford to be guilty of such inconsistencies as have been almost ostentatiously com- mitted by M. Ferry in the discussion of the Revision of the French Constitution, and yet not losing his authority. In political progress all things are relative, and in a time of com- plete political paralysis like the present time in France, it is something gained that France should stand by one of her statesmen whose ability is unquestioned, and who has the
strength of mind to confess an error when he has made one,—
rather than turn him out for someone else quite as blundering, quite as cynical, and with less largeness of conception. As the leader of a nation, M. Ferry seems to us at best a make- shift, but even a makeshift may be a blessing if it makes shift for a certain length of time, and so tends to shape the purposes of the people into something like clearness and earnestness. After the masts have gone, a jury-mast is a makeshift ; but a jury- mast by means of which the wreck can make a port, is very much better than no mast at all. M. Ferry seems to us to be doing France the service of restoring to her something like confidence and something like stability. He has effected this by very unscrupulous means, it is true. He has adopted a Jingo Colonial policy with some success, and trimmed very cleverly between the dislike of the French to failure, and the still greater dislike of the French to large and dangerous
undertakings. It looks as if he might still patch up some understanding with China, which will prevent the great
war which the French fear so much, and yet secure the Tonkin advantages which the French value so much. And though, in his apparently rather ill-timed raid upon the Constitution, he has made great mistakes, it is certain that by the composure with which he has faced the con- sequences of those mistakes, and the proof he has thereby afforded to France that the majority of the Chamber will not desert him on account of those mistakes, he has almost turned those mistakes into advantages. It is something new to see the French Chamber sticking to a Minister who, having declared that the Senate had decapitated his scheme for the revision of the Constitution, and that it was impossible to accept a scheme so headless, enters the Chamber, as one of the witty opponents of his policy said, carrying the decapitated head under his arm, and mildly proposes to his party to accept the scheme, headless though it be. The vote of 294 against 191 by which the Chamber accepted this head- less St. Denis of the Republic, was a great victory for French fidelity over French logic. Doubtless, French fidelity might be better illustrated, if the object of it were somewhat more worthy of political reverence ; but it is something to accustom the Republic to accept at all the illogical decisions of a statesman against the logic and wit of even less statesmanlike opponents. It is something that the Chamber is learning to be led, even though it be only by M. Ferry. And it is a great landmark in the process of learning to follow, when it will follow, a Minister through ridicule to which he himself has given the point.
We do not clearly see why M. Jules Ferry has sprung this question of attenuating the functions of the Senate in France at all, until he felt quite sure that he could carry it to a successful i-sue. At present, it seems nearly certain that he cannot do so. If, in the Congress which is to meet at Versailles on Monday, he reintroduces the question of abolishing the existing power of the Senate to amend the Budget, or even though he only allows it to be reintroduced, he will break faith with the Senate, and put that body in hostility with him. If he confines himself to the minor reform of getting the law affecting the election of the Senate declared extra-con- stitutional, so that it may be amended by an ordinary Bill, he does not effect very much. No doubt, as a conse- quence of passing such a Bill, the electorate of the Senate would be greatly enlarged, and the Senate therefore would become less likely to quarrel with the Chamber. Still, so heroic a measure as a Revision of the Constitution is hardly worth while for such a result as a slight attenuation of the danger of deadlocks: and it is, we suppose, not dubious that M. Ferry would never have engaged in that task, unless he had hoped to get some more substantial result out of it. But what he has proved is that, when he cannot get all he wants, he will yet not despise the attainment of a part of what he wants, and this has been the character of his opportunism all through. He does not throw up his hand in a pet, because he has not made all the points he hoped. He is tenacious of a little, where much is beyond him, and yet he holds to the hope of getting much as long as he can. This is the character of the man, and destitute as he is of principles, in our understanding of that word, it is yet something that the French Deputies are not impatient of his patience, but, on the whole, are disposed to admire it. If they can bear ridicule with him to-day, they will probably bear ridicule with some nobler leader to-morrow. It is no small thing that he has put the reins and the bit on them at all, and made them feel safer under his guidance than under the guidance of their own sweet wills. We do not like M. Ferry's political aims. We do not like his methods. And we cordially dislike his tone. But, on the whole, we are thankful that any influence, not positively of the very lowest kind, is growing in France, and likely to grow. M. Raoul Duval complimented M. Ferry on Thursday on his humility to the Senate,— humility which he would, he said, have called Christian, if he had not been afraid of offending the Prime Minister. Well, we may well acquit M. Ferry of interior humility of any kind, but we must own that he has acted in a manner to which humility may plausibly be imputed. And the fact that, having had the strength of mind to do so, he has not lessened his influ- ence by so doing, is, on the whole,—in a very dark time,—a hopeful augury for the politics of a restless and fretful Republic.
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