A PEOPLE CANNOT GOVERN.
Tun National Assembly of France is accused of being "reactionary" : it was created by the universal suffrage of the nation, and yet it is "reactionary"! This amounts to a confession involving a dilemma,—either the Republicans par excellence are a feeble minority, or universal suffrage has failed to secure a true representation of "the people"; either the people is not present by proxy in that Parliament created by the people, or the people is reactionary. The Monarchy has been deposed for its arbitrary and corrupt administration ; and the Republic, after a brief period of financial chaos, ending in armed anarchy, seeks refuge in the rule of 'a dictator—it flies from the despotic Guizot into the arms of "the African Generals." Louis Philippe might have preserved his crown, for a time at least, had he permitted Marshal Begeaud to use an army and artillery in the streets of Paris : the Marshal was forbidden ; but the Republican Assembly appoints General Cavaignac to do the very thing which Louis Philippe accounted so cruel that rather than suffer it he resigned his crown. The Republicans deposed the Monarch, and have ever since been clamouring for a man "—" a man" observe; the Monarch of "the situation." These apparent inconsistencies are very striking, and of course they mean something. They tend remarkably to overturn an English political dogma, that every Englishman should appear in Parliament, by himself or by his representative," and so forth. The dogma, timehonoured as it is' has been a pure fiction in this country. In France, released from all government and endowed with a suffrage universal, the figment has not been realized : " the people," if by that word is meant the gross majority of the nation—that is the labouring and working classes—is no more present in the 11;11 of the Assembly by representation than it is in person. But we may go further, andlearn from the events before our eyes confirmation of our belief, that any such appearance of the people, in person or by proxy, is not only a figment in this country, a i fact unrealized n France, but is in itself an impossibility.
"The people" rarely appear on the political field at all ; never with any certainty. You never can collect the undoubted judgment of the people. In France, last week, we saw "the people" in arms appealing from "the people" as represented in the National Assembly to " the people " that created that Assembly ; and the armed people was put down by "the people" whom that Assembly recognized. It is all done in the name of "the people." Lafayette gave the crown to Louis Philippe in the name of the people—embraced him in the name of the people ; General Cavaignac's brother headed a conspiracy against Louis Philippe in the name of the people; Louis Philippe continued to govern in the name of the people he was deposed in that name ; and now the Assembly of the people is reactionary, and has been bombarding the people in the streets of Paris in a manner from which the kindly old Monarch's heart shrank. But where was "the people" in each of these affairs ? who saw it? which of the parties in conflict can produce the warrant of the people, duly signed and attested ? who can exhibit the people ?
Did any one alive ever see "a people " ? Never. That which we do see is no more the people than the chorus of supernumeraries at the theatre in Masaniello is the Neapolitan nation. As soon as decisive action begins, it ceases to be the people that acts, and the work is left in the hands of some active section. The people—the great mass of average men, women, and children—are ignorant, inert, vague, negative : they have no distinct or positive ideas : they feel wants or injuries, they can enjoy benefits: they can be acted upon, but not act, except, on rare and disastrous occasions, to hustle, confuse, impede, and destroy. You might as well ask the people to come in and cook your dinner, or mend the lock of your door, as govern the country, set a disordered administration to rights, or solve a perplexed question. You cannot get hold of the multitudinous creature ; and if you did, it could not perform your wish. The people cannot govern, it can only be subject. There is a notion, indeed, that although the people may not be able to come forward in person, yet by some stupendous elaborate machinery, the multitude, individually and collectively, can appear by representation in a national assembly. Can such be said to have happened in France 't—We hold it to be impossible, and also not desirable. Indeed, judging from the practice in France, and in other countries where universal suffrage has prevailed, such has been the usual opinion even of "the people." The only instances in which the people returns itself to Parliament is where it does so under some kind of compulsion,— as in Sweden, and in some German states, where a section of the legislative body has been appropriated for members of the labouring class and there the institution proves not very convenient to the administration of affairs, while the social distinction is invidious to the people. But where the suffrage Is really free and universal, the labouring electors do not choose members of their own class. If they did, they would not
getany nearer to an accurate representation. if they chose
strictly working men who had not risen above the level of their order, they would merely send to Parliament political Units out of the millions—not representatives of a class, but atoms, as little representing the mass as a single brick does the house. If they chose such members of their own order !"!_possessed enough scope of intellectual comprehension and of mfluence to be leaders and in some sort representative of a class, they would elect, not mere delegates, but persons entertaining broader views than the individuals of the multitude; and whether those views were better or worse, they would at any rate be different. The persons thus possessing sufficient influence to ob
tain a considerable number of suffrages would be such as to uphold opinions in many respects different from those entertained by the people. So it turns out in France : the members of the working class seem to be comparatively few, and those who have been effective members of the national council have been decidedly unlike the common sort. In short, the men who can obtain any general concurrence of suffrages do not represent individuals or mere aggregations, but some prevailing opinion or influence.
Thus an assembly freely elected does not represent the people, individually or collectively, so much as the views and opinions that obtain sanction and currency among the people—the chief influences in the country. It 'is so, and it should be so.
In like manner, the people of any great nation cannot enter directly or by procuration into the work of forming a government: a government will emanate, and it ought to emanate, from that which is the dominant influence. The active and earnest politicians of France, who are feeling their way to some new form of government, are obligingly furnishing evidence in support of the opinion which we have already expressed to that effect. In fact, what we have above described as a conflict of the people with itself was really a conflict of different influences, each claiming more or less support from the people. That which prevailed for the time was the influence of a' numerous and heterogeneous class that combines a decided love of civil order with notions more or less distinct in favour of a particular form of government. The thing most needed in France is efficient government. The French have learned from bitter experience that anarchy is not conducive either to individual or political freedom—it has resulted in mob intimidation, necessarily antagonized by martial law. The greatest amount of freedom of which a nation is capable is attained by the complete development of its own -dominant opinion and of the government thence emanating. Neither freedom nor any other good is to be attained by the simple or direct destruction of a government thus originating. If the de facto government of a country does not really represent the dominant influence of that country, the dominant influence will soon make itself apparent, and we have "revolution." If the government is imperfect, and a minority in the country entertains a better notion—we mean a minority in social influence as well as in numbers—its duty will be, not to attempt a revolution, which being hopeless will end in mere disorder, but to attempt the slower task of developing that minor, influence until it become the major influence. In any case, the best government which a country is capable of producing is the government that emanates from the principal influence of the country. These considerations have a bearing not only on the future of the French nation, but on our own treatment, of the constitutional questions which are mooted amongst ourselves with a reviving activity. They are, we think, calculated to allay both expectation and fear of what may arise from organic changes. They teach us, that even the dreaded universal suffrage would not entail what is the true bugbear of that scheme—a government by the working classes. The permanent rule of every country will always be carried on by the most influential classes ; and in no political bouleversement can the real order of power be inverted, any more than water can go up hill. That which has been the most influential class may lose its power by losing its virtue or its start in the possession of political intelligence—as the aristocracy of France did before the great Revolution—as our aristocracy seems likely enough to do now if it do not "look sharp." But the influential class will inevitably come to the top ; and universal suffrage neither has prevented nor could prevent it. Universal suffrage, indeed, might operate as a safeguard against violent revolutions, by facilitating the natural development of new influences, and of a corresponding intelligence, and thus smoothing the transfer of power to its rightful claimants. Free public discussion and a free press are potent auxiliaries in a similar process : they cannot really depose the rightful possessors of power, nor set up the wrongful possessors ; but they may ease the operation of any inevitable transference. Or they might even prevent a transfer, by keeping the actual possessors of power informed on the processes of development that are going forward, and thus inciting them to maintain their supremacy by a coordinate selfdevelopment. But under any circumstances, whether with or without universal suffrage or other forms of "free institutions," the best government of which a country is capable is that emanating from its chief influence ; and that government should be developed to its most perfect form. A true patriot, therefore, will not be too ready to relinquish that government, or to compromise it : it should be maintained in a state as perfect as possible, until it be superseded. Compromises are partial treacheries against the true power and welfare of the state. In France, for example, a true patriot will not be too ready to yield up a power which he may possess, simply for the ostentation of self-denial. We are not sure that General Cavaignac did the best service to his country, the other day, when he was so ready to resign his power : it was a risk. The most patriotic act in France will be to develop as complete an Executive Government as can be made, and then to defend it manfully against all antagonists or so-called "appeals to the people. We have already shown that no government with the name can be formed directly by "the people"; ; the people, there
fore, can only give a very vague and general sanction, and cannot entertain any appeal of the kind. No Government but that which represents the dominant influence can be stable ; and universal suffrage, by opening a wide field for political activities, seems to offer one large security for such accordance. By fregnent,broad, and sincere appeals to the community at large on the subject of its measures, every government will best secure to itself a chance of retaining the widest and most effective influence. By governing for the benefit of all, it is nearly certain to do so, whatever he its technical form. By a process of self-development, the governing classes may always maintain the lead.
To recapitulate—what we learn from the suggestions of contemporary history is, that no government can cite the authority of "the people"; that none can really represent a whole people; that it must always rest upon some partial but paramount influence; that it best secures its own stability and performs its functions by a full development of its own efficiency; and that true patatiotasm consists, not in. providing " checks " for that power, Main aiding the development of the best government, whatever its technical forms, that any country can produce.
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