The San Francisco call., 1896-04-26
Mob Violence Probably a Prelude
to the Revolution That
Is Imminent.
ENGLAND AND THE TRANsvAAL
Disturbances in Matabeleland That
Give the Beers an Excuse
for Aiming.
Copyright. 1895, by the New York rimes.1

LONDON. ENG, April 25.-There was a
little street fighting between soldiers and
police on one side and the populace on the
other in Paris last night. Half of the cor
respondents stationed there for the Lon
don papers treat 1t as trivial the other
half deem it an overture to sinister
period of mob violence. This contradiction
is typical OF the uncertainty enveloping in
the whole French situation. MY own
reading of the riddle is that up to Wednes-
day Bourgeois believed that he had the
President at his back and saw his way
clearly through a campaign of mingled
strategy and force which must end in
smashing the Senate, but that at the criti-
cal moment everything was altered by his
discovery that Faure had slipped away
from behind him and was trafficking with
the other side. This theory has at least
the merit of explaining what has hap
pened which no other can do.
If it is right, then the burden of what is
to happen win fall on Felix Faure himself.
1t is only a fortnight ago that he was pub
licly insulted by the fashionable support
ers of the Senate and could not venture
into the streets without being hooted by
their hirelings. Ii he be weak enough to
turn and play their game now they may
use him, but they will not protect him in
the Elysee day longer than it may be
necessary to their purpose.
His resignation, as I understand it,
formed part of the original Bourgeois
scheme; but then it was 10 be only q
Ndum my resignation, to give a pretext for
conyening the National Assembly at Ver-
sailles. This body was to re-elect him,
and then, incidentally, revise the constitu-
ton in the matter of cutting the throat OF
the Senate. Perhaps this leap in the dark
was too much for his courage, perhaps he
feared treachery on the part of the Radi-
Gals or doubted their having a majority at
Versailles. At ali events he drew back,
and Bourgeois had to resign instead. The
Chamber OF Deputies, however, has con-
tinued to show fight, and unless it alters
its attitude it can render any new Ministry
impossible for even day and make dead
lock, which may be met in only one or two
ways-either the President must resign or
he must get the Senate to join him in de-
creeing the dissolution OF the Chamber and
a new election.
This dissolution is now different matter
from what 1t would have been with Bour-
geois in Office.
The French elections are vigorously
managed by the French ministries
through departmental administrative ma
chinery, and the Senate has refused to
give Bourgeois this chance of working up
a Radical majority in the new Chamber
but now that he is out the anti-Radical
plan is to fix up an ad interim cabinet of
strong, INSCRIPTIONS politicians, with
perhaps Meline, the Mckinley of France,
at it's head. and when the Chamber says
no to it simply to produce document de-
claring the Chamber dissolved. Appa-
rently this is what may be expected next
week unless Faure meanwhile gets a new
panic and retires altogether. Whichever
way one studies it, big constitutional
issues are involved in the struggle and it
is extremely unlikely that they may be
settled withou trouble
There is a sudden revival of excited in
terest in South Africa here which recalls
the wild futter1ng of that eventful first
week Of January. To-day it seems lust
about al even chance if the 800 white
people i'll Buluwayo are to escape mas
sacre or not, and each day now will in
crease terribly the odds agains them.
Since the Sepoy mutiny no such fate has
overhung a British community of any
size, and the fact of teIegraphic communi-
cation being maintained with the be-
leaguered folk only makes the tension of
anxiety here greater. Unhappily, this
lurking terror of what may happen in
MatabeIeland insists on braiding itself up
with apprehensions of, perhaps, even
graver mischief elsewhere. The Beers
have taken fright at this new massing of
prif nn q nd
hurriedly arming and mobilizing their
fighting men for an emergency. They re-
ply to the English protests that these
fresh, big Ievies are to rescue Buluwayo
and crush the Matabele uprising by quot
ing DR.. Jameson's similar muster on their
frontier last winter, and really the British
find themselves without any suitable re-
tort to this. They can only lose their tenn
per and warn the Boer that if he makes
himself disagreeable at this iuncture he
will stand very good chance of getting
his head broken, whether he be in the
right or not.
This rising choler of the English is being
sedulously famed by the German reptile
press,n which insists daily that the tales
of the Matabele revolt are all bald inven-
tions. designated to cloak massing of
troops for invasion of the Transvaai OF
course advantage is taken of it also by the
aristocratic and stock -jobbing classes
here, who are crazy for conquest of the
Transvaal and the rabbing of the gold
fields.
There are unfortunately signs that these
powerful classes at last have Chamber
lain's ear and that he IS leaning more and
more to their view of the situation. Mon