The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-05-15

| the present moment is that she has no leader,
| and no principles fitted to command the en-
thusiasm of people demoralized by long
worship of success and trained to substitute
an exaggerated national vanity for the ideal
of true patriotism What is popularly known
as the quart dheure de I2G6tJdis-the long
deferred settling -day-has come With a ven-
geance, and there is a sort Of morbid consola-
ton to be derived from the continuance of
the present troubles, inasmueh as they defer
the time when the nation must settle down
to the dreary work of paying out of hard
won earnings the heavy penalty OF defeat.
One hundred millions of doAars are to be
Paris. -""0' ~ : --''' N"A'
1t is far from unlikely that this newly an
nounced provision of the final treaty or
peace may help to retard the event on which
it depends. In the Versailles army there are
Bonapartists, Orleanists, and Legitimists, as
we'll as Republicans. If the leaders of these
sections of French politics have any avowed
policy at all, it is that of waiting upon events.
One of the contingencies reckoned upon is
that the moderate Republic to which M.
Theirs expresses himself devoted will prove
unable to cope with the Communist opposi-
ton, and that the country will throw itself
into the arps of some of the rival factions
The pacification of Paris, and the payment of
the first instalment of the indemnity TO Ger
many, would entitle the existing Government,
on the one hand, to the confdence-of the
people, and on the other to the support of
the Cabinet of Berlin. Meanwhile, France
is uncertain on whom to depend, and Ger
many is ready to sustain any government
that is strong enough to make itself obeyed,
and popular enough to be trusted with the
savings of the people.
The determined stand made by the Com
mune will, even after it has ceased, compel
some concessions to the men who have
1olNl H. G., e
the Partisan faubourgs of Anglo-Saxon, race,
they would probably emigrate the moment
they were fairly beaten. But with French
men, and more especially Parisians, the ties
of locality are too strong to be dissolved,
even by bitter disappointment and irreparable
disaster. Be their numbers twelve thousand
or hundred thousand, they will represent
henceforth, as Louis Napoleon used to say
he did, "a cause, principle, and defeat.
They will be perpetually on the watch to
retrieve the one and to avenge the other.
| The shame of the German occupation will
rankle less deeply than the memory of being
conquered by men of their own race and peo-
| ple There will be memories of triumph, too,
like the bayonet charge that reconquered
| Bridge of Neuilly. 1t will be difficult to
| appease q faction like this, but still more
difficult to disregard it. France, if she is to
remain republic at all, cannot, as she has
before attempted, retain an Imperial organi-
zation. The great cities must, unquestion-
ably, have more potent voice than hereto
fore in the selection of their local officers.
For good or evil, universal suffrage must be
allowed its full share in municipal as we'll as
national affairs. With towns that are Re-
publican, and rural districts that are Impe-
rialist or monarchical, the problem of French
cohesion is one of the hardest Of European
politics. On the mode in which it is worked
out depends, perhaps more than on any other
circumstance, the future of European
democracy.
GENERAL GRANT AND THE REPUB-
LICANS-GENERAL SHERMAN AND
THE DEMOCRACY.
Front hs N. Y. Herald.
There are two things in regard to the next
Presidency which are morally certain, and q
third which can hardly be doubted. The first
is that General Grant will be the Republican
candidate; the second is that the Republican
party will be united in his support, and the
third is that unless the Democracy take a new
departure, they will, as in 1860, 1864, and
1863, be again defeated. The necessities OF
their position demand a new departure, both
in their platform and in their candidate; for,
though we look all the way back to General
jackson, we can find no Democratic Presi
dental platform available for 1872, aud in all
the list of regular hold-over Democratic poll
ticians mentioned as among the probabilities
in the coming contest, there is not one OF
them possessed of sufficient wind and bottom
for a four-mile heat over the national course
with General Grant.
While he was pushing his st. Domingo
annexation scheme, and with the apparent
resolution of pushing it at all hazards, there
was O hope, from the Republican defeat il
New Hampshire, that the party might become
so demoralized and divided as to render the
denomination of General Grant somewhat
doubtful, and the prospect for the Democrats
in any event, very encouraging. But the
President having put out of the way his st
Domingo apple of discord, the Connecticut
election upset the pleasing Democratic delu
sion that New Hampshire was the beginning
of great political revolution, and convinced
the party that that election must be set dowr
to the chapter of accidents. Indeed, the
alarming clamor and enthusiasm of the De
mocrats over New Hampshire, including the
unfortunate speech of JEFF Davis in Alabama
expressing his hope of the ultimate triumph
of the 'lost cause, had much to do witt
their defeat in Connecticut. In the one STATE
the Republicans were caught mapping owe
Sumner and st. Domingo; in the other the.
were thoroughly aroused by what they sup
posed to be the old war drums and the rGppe
of the Rebellion.
| But if the dropping of St. Domingo b,
General Grant silenced the mutineers of hi
| party and disarmed even Senator Sumner
I what shall we say of the grand idea of tn
Joint High Commission and of the grea
treaty from that enlightened body of peace
makers now before the Senate, in connection
i with General Grant and the Presidents
| sucoeGaion2 In the very announcement from