New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1875-11-26
FRENCH POLITICS.
MINISTER BUFFETs TACTICS.

! [fRoN THE REGULAR CORRESPONDENT OF THE TRIBUSE'i
PARIS. Now ION. Buffet lets pass oppor-
tunity of declaring in the distnctest manner that
Oh no consideration whatever would he undertake to
make the elections with the scrutin dc hste" This
text may be found in number of the nOaiieT Oni-
re,sel of last week. The Monitew is good authority
! in the case. The meaning of il il that NJ Buffet
holds il to be proper function of the Minister OF
the Interior to make the elections y but that the
making of them after his image would be so him
dered by the scuR de lsfc that he would not under
take the job and therefore that he determined long
ago to make of the adoption of the srutin darron-
basement Cabinet question.
! As some Of your readers may have forgotten the
meaning of these two terms, word of definition
will be not misplaced BY the scrutin dc fs0 all the
delegates that department has the right to send to
| tine Chamber Of Deputies arc voted for ON one
| ticket. This general-ticket system existed while
the Republic of 1913 existed and 1t is worth not
| ing i'm passing under il Conservative" maiOrities
were returned to the Constituent and Legislative
| Assemblies. 1t was abrogated by Louis Napoleon,
who substituted uninominal system cutting up the
departments into snge-deputy districts at his will.
S7ufin ACKNOWLEDGEMENT would except for few large
towns, make this ticket uninOmina, AS the arron-
basement boundaries already fixed, but gives no
chance of renewing the late Imperial gerrymander-
ing processes. 1t cannot be pretended that either
]
nent for and against either brought forth album
dainty in these latter days, is in sort abstract and
but indistincty if at all practically applicable to
the actual situation, which is especial and proyl-
sionai.
| The Electoral law, with the discussion OF which,
on ITS second reading in tue Assembly, now opens
the debates of it's final session. is especial aud pro-
yisional. Minister Buffet has done his best to give
il tins character; the circumstances of the times
have done the rest. As general rule, nearly all
sincere Republicans are favorable and nearly all
Monarchiss opposed, To the scrutin ne Esfe Were
frankly constitutional Republican in the Ministry OF
the Interior or the Republican Constitution, legal
lied six months ago. established in working ORDER
the few members of the Left Center still favorable
to the scrin ACKNOWLEDGEMENT would be joined By per-
haps half or of that group. But the vote, to be
called for in few days, on the fourteenth article
of the Electoral law, will be not 80 much on the
two methods of sc,ptia As on the question whether
NJ. Buffet is TO make the elections" with his adj
ADMINISTRATION machinery applied to the scrto'n Oar
rondisenent NJ Buffet prides himself ON his ortho-
doxy as a paramentaran. His action, since he be-
came Chief of Cabinct-let alone his less strong but
sufficiently emphatic wor,ls-seems to have been
constant effort to rule with minority. lie does
not pride himself being a republican but he
came over at the last moment-Toyalism beng too
evidently lost cause for the time-to save TIE re-
public from being republican. One OF this repub
lican Prime Minister'S first manifcstos in the
tribune, from which he has not swerved was to the
virtual effect, that between Comparison and
Radicalis, he east in his lot and ministerial weight
with B0napartism. As if the constant conduct OF
his administration were not sufficient confirmation,
he further illustrated and improved on the manifesto
of March II by various Others, and. prominent
fh. r,.St lax \ pup which
that in his view the mcnacing danger to social and
moral order" was threatened constantly not merely
by wicked men with revolutionary purposes but by
those who entertained ideas that might lead TO reyo-
lutionary ideas in a word, Theirs, Gambetta, Louis
Blanc Felix Participating of the nature of sincere
repubcansm and petroleum as a political principle
were all in one concatenation accordingly
Ii is against this man, with his administrative
power In hand and of their views, and the purpose OF
applying that power to their furherance III the com
ing general elections that nearly all the Left will
vote, when voting against the scratiH d0TondssG-
mept one Of these next days. But not nearly ALL not
even quite all the Left are enough to make major
i,y in this curious Assembly, where fixed majority
is and which never has offered can Offer the ee
ments out of which than occasional majority
can be composed In the general way, as was Just
intimated or said the Constitutionallss-the Left
are for the Monarchsts against scIHin de Hste, and
this for two patent in the special ease, apart
from the general and in sort, for to-day, abstract
argument for or against either general or singular
ticket method.
The coming general elections, which under an es-
tabIished gOvernmentmight properly turn on second
airy questions of its domestic o. foreign policy, and
in local instances also properly turn local inter
ests and personal merits of individual candidates, do
Ia tie actual ease fatally and properly turn on the
lar0er onestion-fr1nk and full acceptance as final
or more or less qualified rejection of the roted and
legalized, but as yet not practically insti-
tuted and honestly pTacticed Republican Con-
stitution That the popular quality of
the elections is simpiifed and facilitated in Its
expression by the scraia de HSie does not need eX-
planatory demonstration. That the free fullness
and distinctness of this expression would be CON
sIderaby checked aud modified not to say muddled,
by the posing of unnOminal personally influential
local candidates must be equally evident TO any one
somewhat acquainted with French political and
social, especially French provincial political and
social manners aud customs and things, and tue
French. Nor need any such one of your readers be
told what even cusoIy if sincerely studious view OF
the electoral campaigns under the late Empire will
have suggesively informed him of, that the scratI
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT lends and gives peculiarly impress
siye value to the force and pressure which Minis
ter of the Interior readily bring TO bear on local
lied political elections. The Project, the Sub-Pre-
feet, the Mayor lby virtue OF the DE Broglan law
on Mayors, the garde-champetre, and the other
priyates ia the great standing army Of little func-
tionares are held ia the hollow of his hand, and
II WERE breathe their bated breath of life by nspra
ton from his nosris. This power of their influence is
increased just i'll proportion it can be concentrated
on one per .on in locality. 1t is more broken and
wasted in any attempted application TO the larger,
Ia Of nut