The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1882-12-03
OUR FRENCH LETTER.
PARIS, November 8.

Especial correspondence of the HERALD.
Speculation is busy over the pros
poets of the new session. Some pre-
dict modest longevity for the new
cabinet, others count upon its sudden
death. Up to the present, ministers
have not had to face the chamber
they were huddled together to tide
the country over the long vacation
that duty they have accomplished
passably well. They have not started
with the intention of effecting
the impossible; they have displayed
respect for the feelings and preju-
dices of the majority; they scout
utOpias, denounce violence, and
prove they can not only threaten,
but use the rod. But the best cabi-
net in the world can neither exist,
nor work, unless it have a parlia-
metary majority, and the latter pre-
supposes confidence in a leader.
Now unhappily we have neither
leaders nor majority. A heaven
born minister is not to be expected,
and the fractions uniting to form
the bundle, is a form of patriotism,
of self-abnegation and Of discipline
only yet IN the bud.
The political situation since three
months has changed. The repub-
licans feel a scare: their divisions
give strength to the enemy, and
if persisted in, must end in
vain. This time the republic
will have committed suicide, and
may write over its door Ichabod.
The first and second republics were
destroyed by the coupS o. etot of Is
Brumaire and I'd December, but feto
de Sc would admit of no reSslrgGn1.
The collapse of the radicals, In the
demolition by the populace of its
leader, Clemenceau, and the advent
of the dynamite party, has thrown
the cards back to Gambetta. How
he will play them remains to be
seen. ae is the most powerful wire
puller of the cabinet. But the re-
turn of Floquet to the Chamber
means a Brutus for Gambetta, SO
that the prospects Of Cancellation
are small. An appeal to the coun-
try must follow, with the Scrutin de
ZiSte mode of suffrage-the sole
check on the absence of the one
thing needfUl in the manhood vote
Thiers said in his day, that social
ism had emigrated to Germany.
Bismarck appears to have re-ex-
ported the merchandise. Gambetta
boosted that there was no social
question; he must change his mind
by this. The socialism that now
has broken out is not the utopias of
of Proudhon, the fraternity of Louis
Blanc, the eyangile of Lamennois,
or the phalansterlanism of Fourier.
1t is simply anarchy; barbarianism
in its simplest expression; the good
old RUE sufficeth the socialists of
to-day the simple plan.
1ha. they should take who have the
power.
And they should keep who can.
Scientific is the term applied to
socialism just now, doubtless be-
cause its arguments are dynamite,
and requiring only to be answered
by the police and the public prose-
cutOr. The hate of the socialists is
concentrated on the middle classes:
on employees, on capital; in people
who have become rich by their in
telligence, their industry, and their
thrift-means open to all. They ex-
claim, that 81, 700 csrpses, the death
roll of the commune, stand between
them and the middle classes. And
double that number would be made
if necessary,tO keep the Jack Cades
in their place.
The French continue to display
an extraordinary interest, almost
amounting to enthusiasm, on the
subject Of colononization. And
when you speak to them, and point
out, there can be no colonial expan-
sion without emigration, land France
has no emigrants, because having
more redundant population, the re-
ply is, nous QLLo9lS changer tout celia.
In word, France is becoming pen
1tent for her vice of Wilful steril-
ity. 1t has, at least, broken on the
mind, that "the world must be
peopled." The aim or the dream is,
to create in Africa or Asia, a
colonial empire. equal to what
France had and lost in the eigh-
teenth century. when Voltaire rill-
culed the idea of his countrymen
going into a fiutter over the con-
quest of the Canadas-'a few rods
of snow" No time is to be lost. as
the limited vacant spots of the world
are being rapidly picked up, the
in the field being nu-
merous. Oddly enough the French,
who have always sneered at English
being the pioneers of civil
ization, in other terms, of colonial
ton, now urge that lay missions,
''the schoolmaster abroad literally,
be undertaken to open new coun-
tries. France will have colonies
where she can send emigrants; and
flourishing colonies-when the home