The record-union., 1895-06-10
THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.
A Government More Like EngIand's
Than Ours.
Difficulties Which France Must Con-
tend With That Must Be
Considered.

Inc Il f0QCQ R6pQDI1c Is u 0OF0EuLioHs
for which we as Americans must feel
certain sympathy, writes the Phliadel-
phia TelegrdpRs Paris correspondent.
The name touches chord in our own po-
1itical natures, and as the only other
great nation in the world which marches
under this standard, we must and should
have for France and for the French peo-
pie o nearness of thought and interest
which we cannot have for certain other
great Powers and peoples. There is an
intimacy between the American and the
French peoples from the time of our
Revolution, when both. influenced by
the same Rousseauian political philoso-
ply, came out from under the yoke of
various ideas which had prevailed in the
past, and asserted principles that, though
then new, have since spread and estab-
lished themselves in all parts Of the
Western World. Pennsylvania and
France had an especial feeling OF init
macy at that time. Pennsylvania when
the State adopted it's first Constitution,
established q single-chamber Legislature.
the first in the history of modern par
liamentary government, and both
France and America discovered this po-
litical system long before the ancestors
OF the single-chamber Democrats who
think they have found something new in
England, had yet succeeded in teaching
the English language TO their Hanover
Ian Georges.
France since that time has gone
through many transformations, and so
have we, though our way has been less
troublous and eventful, for reasons that
we need not, perhaps, take too much
credit for. It would have been no easy
for Cifn lot aH on the cOnfi-
nent of Europe to have kept along stead
tasty in the pursuit of political idea for
over a century, and no country can SO
far tear itself loose from its past as to
come out and establish Itself on an en-
tirely new basis. The traditions and his
torical institutions of France were very
different from our Colonial conditions.
which were by their nature free and inn
questionable. We can only be glad that
France has found her way back to repub-
licanism and seems SO firmly determined
henceforth to live.according to this esti-
mable political system.
WHAT Is A REPUBLIC?
Nevertheless, it Is easy to be led astray
by this name republic, and the French
Republic is a very different Government
from the American Republic. II would
be narrow-minded to say that our repub-
lie were the only real republic, and that
other Governments which were not like
our were, therefore, not republics. 1t is
true that many people, consider ours as
the best republic, and the Spaniards of
Central and South America have thought
SO highly of it that they have tried to
bodily transplant 1t, when they have
found, as many people have done before
them, that government is not stone or
q piece of furniture, which can be moved
about at will, but rather a great plant,
which has its climate, its soil and its sur
roundings, every one OF them essential to
its stable growth and its regular and
natural development. There is, perhaps,
no definition which will apply to all re-
publics except this one, that 1t is form
of government where the Chief Of State
is at one and the same time ruler and
subject. The Chief of State in monarchy
is never q subject. Ii this is the only
limit which the term can be given 1t is at
once apparent what wide range there is
for variations in the character of repub-
lies, and what deceptive word it can be
when it is employed by those who are not
democrats, at the same time that they are
republicans.
SOME SIMILARITIES WITH ENGLAND.
1t would be an unpleasant lesson for
some Frenchmen, perhaps, were they to
be told that their Government is in many
respects more like England's than like
ours, especially at this time, when the
people of these two great countries feel SO
little love for and confidence in each other.
1t is, nevertheless, a fact, the only essen
tial difference being that England is more
democratic than France, in spite of the
circumstance that the Britannia Empire
is popularity supposed to be monarchy.
The great body of the French people are
more sentimentally democratic than we
Americans are; and there are, OF course,
no people in Europe who are SO full OF
high feeling in regard to this matter on
the whole face OF the continent, with the
exception, perhaps, of the Swiss aud the
Norwegians. Theoretically it is regretta-
Bile that they should be deceiving them
selves; but there are so many practical
difficulties in the way of establishing
anything like an ideal form OF govern
ment In any country which Is c0ntigu-
GUS to Germany that there is rather
cause to wonder that the political con-
ditions can be as free even as they are.
A MoNARCHICAL BACKGROUND.
France has popular Government of
certain form, which many other countries
In Europe have not. There is monarchi-
cal background very truly. The Admin
lstration Is great centralized engine,
still very like that established by the first
Napoleon, and the whole political fabric,
from Commune to State, is too dependent
on the will of a few people. This is the
chief difficulty, and, indeed, danger, per-
haps in modern France. The French
themselves realize il, and it is to be hoped
that the League for Decentralization,
which has been just recently organized,
may be able to do something to bring
about redistribution of powers and
building up of responsible local units.
France is not made up of States, as our
Government is. It is, again, not made of
counties and cities and townships, with
independent powers, IS our States are.
There is, indeed. but one great State, di-
vided. it is true, into eighty-seven prov
tnces or departments, which have again
various local divisions. Most of the adj
ministrative officials of these local politi-
cal divisions are appointed, however,
from Paris, and France, therefore. can
scarcely be said TO have local self-govern-
meut, which is such useful thing in eff
fecting national stability in England and
America. There is, however, more local
feeling and competence than there used
to be, and development is going on,
which, with little intelligent aid from
the central Government, ought to result
advantageously, if no untoward event
forces the country into another war.
THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES AND THE
CABINET.
The Government of France goes on at
the will chiefly of the Chamber of Depu-
ties. which is lower house, correspond
ing to our House of Representatives at
Washington. It is, however. more
omnipotent body, as 1t knows fewer
checks from the President and from the
upper house, called. like our upper house.
the Senate. It is much more similar to
the English House of Commons. There
is Cabinet nominally appointed by the
President, as the English Cabinet Is nom.
lnally appointed by the Queen. In
France. as in England, however, the
Chamber practically makes its own Cabi-
net. which thus becomes but committee
of the HAnsa for thu ad,ro,, L.