The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-09-24
THE POLITICAL SITUATION IN
IRA NTE

The late news from France indicates that the
elections of Constituent Assembly have not
been called one moment too soon. The
power of the Provisional Government is
questioned or defed in various quarters, and
it is imperatively necessary that central
authority which will command universal re-
spect, and which is chosen by the whole
nation, should be speedily established. There
is manifest tendency to disintegration,
which is aggravated by the presence of the
invaders on French soil, and it cannot be
thoroughly corrected until the whole country
unites in establishing government based on
the will of q majority of the entire voting
population instead of the wishes of the
Parisians. We see evidences of this tendency
in the reported outbreaks in Nice and Savoy
in favor of remuneration to Italy, in the
revolt of the Arabs and threatened loss of the
French possessions in Africa in the rumor
that Bazaine will not obey the orders of
Favre and his associates, in the ominous re-
port that Lyons and Paris are not in political
accord, and in the demands which central
republican committee in the city of Paris are
making upon the Provisional Government.
cure for these discords, however, has
already been provided and if France has
learned wisdom from her former republican
experiments she will obey the present rulers
until others can be empowered by the Consti-
tuent Assembly. The greatest obstacle to
permanent popular government is to be
found in the ultra radicalism of the Red Re-
publicans, and their longings for new
social organization which will not only reform
political abuses, but equalize wealth and
create Utopia. Their scheme is as pleasing
to their disordered imaginations as it is hor-
rible in its practical application to real life,
and in grasping at shadow they are forever
losing the substance of rational and we'll
secured liberty. AS France is the cradle of
socialism, and as many of her writers and
thinkers, as well as her workmen, have
learned to treat dreams of Golden Age as
bright realities, it is impossible to say how
much influence the Red Republicans may
exert in moulding the future of the nation,
but it is scarcely probable that they will pos
sess majority in the Constituent Assembly
about to be elected
The overthrow and disgrace of all the
Old dynasties give to the nation a splendid
opportunity for establishing free institutions.
Now since the Bonapartes are shelved with
the Bourbons and Orleanists, the people
have only to prove their capacity for self
government by suppressing the excesses of
the impracticable radicals on the one hand,
and preventing the establishment of new
dictatorship on the other Their success
may hinge upon the manner in which they
extricate themselves from the military perils
by which they are surrounded; but we can
scarcely believe that the movement to which
they are indebted for the overthrow of the
empire, and the consequent creation of their
present political opportunity, will enure, in
its termination, to their disadvantage. The
PrussiaHs unwittingly brought liberty to
France as a compensation for the sufferings
and horrors of invasion, and it seems too
dreadful for belief that their departure should
be signalized by withdrawal of this boon.
Whatever may be the future course of the
war, or the character of the treaty by which
it is closed, France, after suffering and doing
SO much to spread freedom in other coun-
tries, has legitimate claim to the consola-
tion which has sprung up, like a star of hope,
from her present gloom, and we trust that it
may never again be lost in long night of
despotism.
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N NTYT