The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1901-12-01

He is not really annoyed at inquiries
about his grandfather and his love
affairs and the houses at which ne
calls half so much as he would De
by being passed over as one whose
affairs could matter only to himself.
II secrecy is usually maintained ne
is content that his intimate life should
be known to officials, and resents only
one inquiry-that into his income. He
is quite sure, we have no idea why,
that secrecy about that will not be
maintained, and that if it is not main
tained he will be pestered at once by
relations and by the enviOus, and about
that one inquiry, therefore, he holds
out tenaciously, resisting all projects
Tor an income tax with persistent,
If passive, resolution which is the de-
SPAR, not only of ministers of finance,
but Of the scientific economists who
abound in France who are sincerely
respected, and who seldom succeed in
even modifying a law.
1t is not necessary in this country to
denounce the system, and we are
rather interested in inquirying what its
apologies may be. 1t seems clear that
If honestly worked it must facilitate
both the repressive work of the gov
ernment, which on the continent is con-
sidered one Of its first functions, and
the ordinary administration of crimi-
nal justice. The government knows
where to strike and does not waste its
strength, and the public prosecutors
know accurately the real character of
those whom they assail. Both those
results are advantages helpful to the
maintenance of that strict, if slightly
monotonous, order" which all who are
trained under the Roman law regard
as an ideal, though they do not succeed
specially in obtaining it. The system
is in fact akin to the practice of con-
fession, which, whatever its other
drawbacks, does enable the clerical
caste to direct its monitions straight
and not to waste the minatory side
of its energy upon INSIDERS at large.
1t may be suspected, too, that fear of
the dossier does act sometimes strong
ly as restrining influence, an opinion
said to be fully borne out by the result
both in Germany and France of COM
polling workmen to keep livrets where
in their relations with employers
throughout life are clearly recorded.
We should say, too, that the treatment
of the respectables, whose dossiers are
known to the police to be clean, would
for that reason be more lenient and
that large classes find in them a GER
tain guarantee of security. But the
real defense for them must be that
luCy SlISIlS IllSIl IilS SOCldl COllCSlOli,
the family life, so to speak, Of the COM
munity, which the Latin race, if in
deed not all continentals, perpetually
seek. We Englishmen think that life
inferior to our own, and if we reflect
on the bitterness of continental social
hatreds and their absence among our
selves we are probably right-we say
probably only because it is impossible
to estimate precisely the influence OF
race upon those hatreds-but we are
not quite sure, if happiness is the end
sought, that peoples conscious of a GER
tain inability to stand alone do not act
wisely in using every device calculated
to bind them closely together. Men
are much better without elastic stock
ings, but if their muscles are weak
or their veins liable to swell they may
be more efficient as well as happier for
submitting to such wearying restraints
That life is freer in England than in
France is certain, but whether it is
happier or whether Frenchmen, being
what they are, would be happier for an
imitation of our ways is not as yet
quite so conclusively established.