T HE case of the French Carthusians suggests some reflections which
are very applicable to ourselves. We may draw the moral without being disturbed. by the fact that the case is still under investigation, because we have no intention of dealing with it except in one of its most general aspects. The allegation against the Grande Chartreuse is that, seeing itself in danger of undeserved banishment, it was willing to pay a large sum of money in order to ward off the expected decree. There are few persons probably who will not be disposed at first sight to justify the community for taking this course,—assuming for the moment that they did take it, a point about which we know nothing. Here, it will be said, is an inoffensive community, beloved. by its neighbours, engaged in a profit- able industry, not accused of meddling with politics,— leading, in fact, a harmless, and, as many people would think, a useful, life. To suit the exigencies of French politics, and to make it easier to punish other religious communities which have not the same unblemished record, the Government are about to order it to leave France. The measure is arbitrary and unprovoked. It will tend to impoverish the district in which the monastery stands. It is inconsistent with that elementary notion of freedom which holds that the only ground of interference with individual liberty is that it is being exercised to the injury of some one else. It comes to the ear of the Fathers that a judicious expenditure of money may help them out of their difficulty. If this should prove true, is there any moral objection to the community spending its money in this way ? Who will suffer by it ? Not the Government ; they will only be saved. from com- mitting an injustice. Not the country ; it will be spared the discredit of consenting to an injustice. Not the district in which the monastery stands ; that will keep its best agricultural teachers. Everybody, in fact, will lose something by the banishment of the Carthusians, and consequently gain something by the suspension of the decree. If the money were given to induce the Government to do something wrong, we should all admit that such an employment of it was inadmissible, however useful might be the result of thus spending it. But when the object is simply to prevent the receiver of the bribe from doing wrong, where is the harm of the transaction ? We bribe freely in war in order to get information of the enemy's bad intentions. Why should. not we bribe with equal freedom in peace in order to dissuade the enemy from carrying out his bad intentions ?
The answer is that the distinction between a state of war and a state of peace is vital. War suspends all the obligations which men ordinarily have to one another. The laws which regulate social intercourse are for the time as though they were not. The combatants have returned to the state in which to slay your enemy was the first dictate of self-preservation, the only means of preventing him from slaying you. It is evident that war being what it is, the application of its maxims must be limited with the utmost strictness. In itself and while it lasts it is a necessary evil ; but it would be an intolerable evil if it were allowed to transfer its laws to a time of peace. We transfer, indeed, many of its terms to the ordinary inter- course of mankind. We talk of campaigns and battles, of victories and defeats, of strategy and tactics. But we do but use the terms analogically. We are quite aware all the time that we owe to our political or commercial opponents a very different kind of treatment from what we mete out to our opponents in the field. Apply this to the case of the Carthusians and the moral will be apparent. They are subjects of the French Government, and. they are not released from their duties to that Government by the circumstance that it is acting tyrannically. We are not speaking here, of course, of any right of resistance that belongs to oppressed citizens. There is no question of a revolution in France, and consequently no occasion for considering whether the reasons alleged for it are adequate. Nor is it a case in which ransom is demanded by some brigand acting in open defiance of the law. The person to whom the bribe is offered, directly or in- directly, is the constituted Government of the country, and it is offered with the view of inducing it to forego the execution of a legal purpose. In principle this is quite as subversive of just administration, and ministers quite as much to the substitution of corrupt officials for honest ones, as any other form of bribery. The Government have determined upon a par- ticular policy, and obtained the consent of the Chambers to its execution. Is a citizen who is interested in prevent- ing this joint resolution of the Executive and the Legis- lature from being acted upon justified in attempting to bribe the Government to hold their hands? Surely not. It is the duty of the Executive to obey the directions of the Legislature, or to make way for others who can do so with more satisfaction. What those who offer the bribe are seeking is that the Executive should leave this duty un- performed and yet retain office, and the inducement put forward is a sum of money. It is nothing to the purpose that the duty in question is not really a duty. M. Combes must be supposed to regard it as such, and at all events he has the authority of Parliament to support him in so regarding it. It would be a bad day for public morality if a man might without any loss of character offer a bribe to the Government to abstain from doing something which they thought right because he himself thought it wrong. Every one is disposed to think Executive action wrong when it interferes with his personal convenience. Every one, therefore, would be justified in bribing official persons not to do the particular action that annoyed him. The most corrupt Governments that have ever existed need. have asked no more than license to take bribes from every one who held that to bribe was harmless, so long as he thought that the policy which he paid for was better than the policy which would have been adopted had his offer never been made.
What was done or not done by the French Carthusians concerns us very little,—not at all, indeed, except so far as we should be sorry to see religious men persuading themselves that it is better for a Government to do right corruptly than to do wrong honestly. But the time is again coming round when some hundreds of Englishmen will be plied, or will ply themselves, with all manner of argu- ments to show that, while to take a bribe is mean and dis- honourable in the highest degree, to give a bribe may in. certain circumstances be almost innocent. In the coming General Election great principles will be in issue. If constituencies were what they should be, the result might be awaited with perfect composure. The relative advan- tages of Protection and Free-trade would be submitted to an electorate keenly interested in the question submitted. to them, and honestly anxious to arrive at a right decision concerning it. To think of bribing men of this type would be shocking if it were not ridiculous. Unfortunately, we know but too well that a proportion of the electorate, large enough in many cases to turn the scale in the direction they prefer, look forward to election-time with very different views. They would like to sell themselves to the highest bidder. Why, it will be asked, should we let the wrong side win for want of the encourage- ments which would make the wavering electors vote as one man for the right side ? Or take a more subtle and more modern form of bribery,—the " nursing " of constituencies. It is somehow or other conveyed to a candidate that if he wishes to win the seat he must let it be known what he is good for as regards the churches and chapels and. charities and institutions of the division for whose votes he is asking. It is expected of a candidate that he should show a kindly interest in all that interests the electors, and where personal knowledge is impossible this kindly interest can but take the form of a £10 note. In many of the Metropolitan constituencies, for example, the seat, it is rumoured, costs its fortunate occupant some thousands a year. It is all spent upon objects presumably good, or at least not demonstrably bad, and the Member probably never asks himself why he does it. To submit to being bled. in moderation and according to rule is part of the business of a politician. Going into politics means going into Parliament, going into Parliament means taking the necessary steps to get into Parliament, and the most im- portant of these steps is to stand well with your constituents. They do not elect you because you spend so much a year in local subscriptions; but they would not elect you if you did not spend it.
It is all bribery, and it is all bad. The elector's vote is• not given him to sell, but to use for a certain purpose, and the Member who induces his constituents to vote for him election after election, not because they share his convic= Lions, but because they appreciate his subscriptions, is just as much guilty of bribery as the candidates who in older days bought votes at £5 a head.
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