The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1892-12-23
THE PERIL OF FRANCE.

THE PERIL OF FRANCE.
To the friends of republican institu-
occasions them great anxiety. In our
own country Cabinet and Congressional
scandal such as agitates France now
would not for a moment be thought peril
GUS to the republic. Butin France very
different people are operated upon; with
them the SAVIOR remains of monarchical
and imperial conditions under which all
visitations of i'll were held to be charge
able upon the ruling power.
The French people have not as yet
risen to the level upon which the Tree
man stands who looks upon himself as
the sovereign. Naturally quick to judg-
ment, hasty and easily irritated, the
French masses for the sins and corrup-
ton OF individual officials turn upon the
whole system of government, utterly for
getful that it is not in any way Justly
chargeable with the present scandals.
They cannot be easily made to under
stand that administration may be weak,
ill-advised, even vicious, without imply
ing unsoundness in the substructural
principles Of the system OF government.
There remain in France as yet a large
number of monarchists, imperialists
and Bonapartists, men and women who
would hail the fall of the republic with
delight, and make common cause to that
end with any influence no matter how
despicable. Believing in the doctrine Of
the divine right of a royal aristocracy to
rule, they have already, if we are to be-
heve the telegraphic reports, held out to
the men guilty of wrong-doing in the
matter of the Panama Canal deal the
hope that if monarch is set up their
misdeeds will be pardoned; at least that
the new government will be blind to
their crimes. Thus the aristocrats expect
to bring into their schemes to attain
power influences that have everything to
gain and nothing to lose by the overthrow
Ofthe republic.
But unless the plotters for the return of
the empire can so play upon the mer-
chant class, the ruralists and the COM
mon people as to make them believe that
their property possessions and their small
investments are unsafe under the repub-
lie, we do not entertain grave fears for its
safety. The Frenchman, as one writer
well says, is a man of business; no mat
ter in what walks found he is trained to
saving, to business doing, to sclose econ
omies and to constant accumulation. The
enemies of the republic know, therefore,
that if he can be brought to such a state
of mind as to regard his means as imper-
lied, the credit the nation should assure
him in investments over which it has or
should have supervision as of doubtful
stability, he will be easily turned over to
the schemes of the royalists and mon
archists, who being outs can and proba-
bly, do promise anything and all things,
if only the throne is re-established upon
the soil of France. These people, who
for the most part have thus far been true
20 the experiment of the republic, hold
.he fate of free institutions in France in
their hands to-day.
The natural inclination of men is to
seek peace and safety. In nation where
the love for personal sovereignty IS as yet
but just developing, and where devotion
to republican system has not yet taken
on at large true patriotic enthusiasm,
the desire for peace and safety easily be-
comes the ruling influence and the form
of government secondary to it. The
Frenchman is to-day as patriotic as ever
for his native land; he will shout for
France and fight for her honor, yield up
his all in her cause, but the republic is as
yet to him very largely different thing.
That is to say, the French people, as a
mass, have not yet come to consider the
republic as identical with France.
But there is body of sincere liberty
lovers-men thoroughly imbued with be.
lief in the right of men to govern them.
selves; who hold to the doctrine that all
power should emanate from the governed
and be returnable to them; that a repub