, 1874-12-26

~ AeC0 lfpCs 4uCLO lIOtO OCCuS VA CQuISci
numberless abstentions-in some places
so many that the Conservatives have some
ground for asserting that latent opinion
is with them, though the Ballot is against
them-but calculations from abstentions
are extremely delusive. The rule, now
almost universal on the Continent, that
On election to be final must be attended
by one-half plus one of all voters on the
register ensures a tolerabIy heavy vote +;
Conservatives have no more motive to
abstain than Liberals; and in politics, as
In everything else, one active man who
will move is worth three who will not
take the trouble even to record their
names. The cities and towns must be
taken to be Radical for the time, and we
do not know that in any other country than
France this would be matter for regret.
A seat in o deliberatiye Council, however
small its number or limited its functions,
tends to educate its possessor, aud if
100, 900 Of the most energetic Radicals In
France have become Municipal Council
Tors, SO much the better for France and
for the Porty. They will learn moder-
alton in power, and their ideas as a mass
would not, we imagine, greatly frighten
EngIishmen, There are of course among
the newly-elected some doctrinaires of the
most dangerous order, men who unite to
the dreamy utopianism which has since
1889 always fingered in French thought
the furious impotence Characteristic Of the
South who want in order to regenerate
society to abolish most of the principles
upon which it has hitherto been founded.
But the mass of French Radicals, we take
it, are, except in their overweening dislike
of the Priests, very much like Radicals
everywhere else,-anxious to do all that
can be done 10 further their own views
without destroying the prosperity OF
their cities. Some of their ideas are wild,
no doubt, and one, the substitution of q
progressive income-taX or property-tax
for all other forms Of taxation, is most dan
gurUuo, but ttIeir PUweTs are restrained
by very strict laws, they can do little with
out official consent, and they must possess,
at least in q degree, some OF the financial
aptitude Of the French, and men OF liuan-
ciu1 aptitude soon find out the consequent
ccs of menacing those who possess capt.
tai. In most countries, we think, the Con
sentative classes would say to themselves,
"Let US see what these bodies actually
do, before we fall into a panic, or attempt
to interfere with the result Of o suffrage
regularly established and exercised"
We fear there will be no such patience
exhibited in France. There, even if the
rural elections are conservative, the Con.
sentative classes, including those who now
control the Assembly, the Army, and the
Bureaucracy, will say that the urban re-
turns must be taken as a menace; that
the masses Of the towns are clearly hostile
to property and order that their "rising''
is a sufficient warning to all men that
"society' must be protected by giving
new strength to the principle of au-
thority. The Government will be urged
to exert still more freely its power OF
nominating Mayors. 1t will be implored
to strengthen urban garrisons. 1t will
be advised to dissolve unhesitatingly any
municipality which attends to politics,
even though attention only takes the form
Of an address. The Marshal President
will allege that here is a clear proof Of the
necessity for formulising his powers in
some method which will not allow Re-
nuhlicans To call themselves the only