pone it as long as possible. M. Goblet had undertaken to bring in an extremely modest Bill, prepared by M. Floquet, proposing simply to appoint a mayor of Paris, with two assessors, who should exercise some part of the executive authority held at present by the Prefect. But he dared not bring it before the Chamber. The Chamber is discussing at this moment a Bill for municipal organization, which applies to 36,096 French communes; the 36,097th commune-that of Parisremains as it is. We of course admit that a city of more than 2,269,000 inhabitants cannot be administered like a commune of only a hundred; but we hold that the scheme prepared for Paris might, with some modifications of detail, be applied to all towns numbering, say, over 10,000 inhabitants-that is to say, possessing resources sufficient to make them self-supporting.

To the objections brought against them the partisans of communal liberty reply:

"Centralization is a legacy of Louis XIV. It was consolidated by the institutions of the year 8, and established by Bonaparte after the coup d'état of the 18th Brumaire. It is to centralization that the instability of the French Government is mainly due. Attempting everything, it becomes morally responsible for everything. Being practically irresponsible, it concentrates on itself all the hatreds of all the malcontents. It is to this same centralization that coups d'état and revolutions have owed their opportunity. Without it, would 1830 or 1848 have been possible, or the 4th of September, 1870 ? The 18th Brumaire and the 2nd of December are its results. Would the 24th or the 16th of May ever have been attempted without it? or would there be any question now of secret practices against the commonwealth, of intrigues and plots of princes? When the whole country receives its impulse from one central power, it needs but a single daring hand on the lever to set all in motion, or to demolish all.

"Centralization is the system of conquerors and despots, the expression of the right of the strongest. It is those who possess the power imposing their will and authority on the nation. Communal liberty is the reign of voluntary union, of free and willing solidarity. The former is the logical consequence of absolute governments, whether based on divine or historic right, or originating in an act of violence; the latter is the necessary form of a Republic in which power is recognized as a trust.

"The Chamber has made but few reforms since its election in 1881. This difficulty in carrying measures should prove to it that it is necessary to leave to the communes the greatest possible freedom of experiment. Every reform involves a certain risk. If it is attempted by the State itself, the risk becomes considerable. If it is first accomplished by the communes, the risk is divided.

"Under the pretence of unity, the whole of France is to be forced into uniformity, so as to press forward into the future at an equal pace. But there are minorities which are very advanced indeed, and there are others which are very retrograde. In order not to leave the slowest behind, in order to enable the sluggish and refractory communes of Lower Brittany to keep up with the march, Paris is to be reduced to the same torpid pace. No wonder Paris and the larger towns grow impatient. If they were allowed to act freely in their own municipal affairs, controlled only by the common law of the whole nation, they would set an example to the rest. The rate of growth will vary with the soil and climate-why not? at least substitute the gentle propaganda of persuasion for hard constraint and progress by machinery.

We shall

"The commune is the primary school of political life. It is in dealing with the affairs of the commune that the elector comes to understand the mutual relation of private and collective interests. The Municipal Council should be the training ground of public men. It is there that they must learn the management and practice of affairs. It is there that their constituents must see them at work, and form their judgment of them. The more extensive the powers of the municipality, the more thorough this trial of men will be." Such is the language of the autonomists of Paris. It has been characterized as seditious.

But the question of the municipal government of Paris cannot long remain unsolved. It has, in fact, already made a considerable advance. In 1871, the first members elected to the council flung their weight against hostile functionaries. Those who have kept their places from then till now best know what a change has taken place. Officials have learnt that Prefects themselves may be less firm in their seats than Municipal Councillors; and that those who leave the communal assembly often leave it to take a prominent place in the Chamber of Deputies. The Government itself gives way before the pressure of the council, backed as it is by a formidable movement of public opinion. With the Radical party the Municipal Council of Paris is more popular than any other political body. This was evident last year at the inauguration of the Hôtel de Ville. This year the council is going to take definitive possession of it. It can hardly be but that the question of the municipal law of Paris will come up for solution before that time; and the Chamber will probably adopt the Bill of M. Floquet, by which the two Prefects will be exchanged for an elected Mayor, the ordinary sessions of the council are to be of two months' duration esch, and the council can be summoned at any time by the Mayor. It is not a great thing; but the axis of the system is shifted. Paris will be represented by a mayor, and not by two prefects.

We have come

back to the true method; and this first step will involve many others. The authorities know it well. This is why they dread the central mayoralty, and declare that, if such an institution is created, France is lost.

The decision of the question will be pushed on from another quarter. Paris is surrounded by a circumvallation, 33,000 mètres in circumference, which, together with the military zone, occupies a radius of 400 mètres, and completely separates Paris from its outskirts. At this moment the question of workmen's dwellings has reached a crisis. The employés of Paris can no longer find lodging

suited to their means. A scheme has therefore been laid before the Municipal Council for negotiating with the Minister of War for the use of the site of the circumvallation, now rendered useless for purposes of defence by the new forts which have been constructed since 1870. Many French generals, amongst others the General of Fortifications, De Villenoisy, and General Millot, Commandant of the Fortress of Paris, are for the suppression of this sort of fortification altogether. Now, as soon as this separation is removed, the communes along the riverside will inevitably be annexed to Paris. It will then be absolutely necessary to reconstruct the administration of Paris, and municipal liberty cannot but gain something by the change.

Finally, the prefecture of police cannot possibly remain as it is. Its budget will certainly be refused by the Municipal Council. The magistracy itself complains, as has already been seen, of the position in which it is placed by this anomalous authority. The system has not a single avowed defender. The Government dare not take the management of it into its own hands, for that would mean a perpetual conflict between the Minister and the Municipal Council, which last would find its opportunity in the Chamber, as it has done several times already. Three Ministers have already fallen in defending the Prefect of Police, one on the spot, and the other two, worn out and discredited by the effort, a few days later.

Without giving way to a vain optimism, the partisans of communal autonomy may hope that, within the next few years, they will have ottained the greater part of what they claim. From that time, in the matter of internal security, education, taxation, poor relief, and so forth, Paris will become the scene of a series of experiments which will serve as a model to the whole of France. If it does, indeed, aspire to lead and dominate the country, it is by way of example and persuasion, and not otherwise. And from that time there will be no finer position for a Frenchman of progressive views, eager to embody his ideas, than that of Municipal Councillor of Paris.

YVES GUYOT.

THE ENGLISH MILITARY POWER AND

THE EGYPTIAN CAMPAIGN OF 1882.

Ν

IN offering some reflections that have occurred to me during a long

residence in England, and after thorough study, I am very sensible how difficult it is not merely to describe the character of a people, but to describe accurately any single trait in its character. To penetrate into the inner national life of a foreign nation is no easy task; and, besides, a nation, like an individual, turns different sides to the light at different times under the influence of different moods and circumstances. It may seem strange to some that I should not, as a soldier, confine my attention to the military side of the English people, but should look at the same time at politics and social questions; but these two factors, having their roots in the common moral force of the nation, are really concurrent conditions of the capacity of the English arms for defence and attack.

Great Britain, which possesses no army of great dimensions and no compulsory military service on the part of the whole nation, furnishes a proof that a system of army organization, founded on a universal obligation to serve, is not an unconditional necessity for all times and all countries. The participation of the people in military affairs could only take place in Britain at the expense of cherished civil arrangements, so that this system, which is elsewhere considered a blessing, would necessarily operate injuriously there. While continental States have striven to make the army an instrument of national education, it has been given to Great Britain to obtain by another and equally national kind of education the same results of subordination in the State and society, and of loyal and habitual co-operation among the individual members of the State towards a great national ideal. History itself has taken part in this national education, and has developed in the nation its life, its character, its common conscious

ness, its freedom in word and deed. The political development of this people has been a spontaneous growth out of its own germ. It has remained almost completely free from foreign invasion, and has had little to suffer from civil strife. As a rounded whole the island sits proudly in the sea, and as a rounded independent whole the nation stands out towards the foreigner. In the mind of this powerful people there resides such an educating force, such a concentration and yet elasticity of faculties, such a vast energy, that no son of England can withstand the educating influence of the nation; the same mould that fashions the nation fashions him. The individuality of the Briton is the individuality of his nation. I once saw a six-year-old boy in Brighton showing the Arcade to his nurse, and breaking out in the words, "That's against the honour of old England." words rang like music in my ear. But have we not then the most proper and natural centralization, when the people is not tied to the centre by external force, but holds by it of free choice with all its might, because it feels and understands the power of the great association it constitutes?

The

In England a decisive individual development is promoted by a rare concurrence of favourable conditions, among which I include the small extent of the country and its insular position, which secure it against foreign attack and make it address its energies to the sea, and, consequently, to trade and industry. Its detached situation, by rendering it self-contained, tends strongly to produce the concentration of energies which shows itself in the practical capacity of the people; and when we take into account, besides these advantages, the accessibility on all sides and the freedom of movement in all directions which it derives from the sea, it will be owned that no other country has ever enjoyed conditions more favourable for natural development. Not less important is the character on which these conditions had to operate. The British-part Celt, part German-combine, in a remarkable way, the liveliness and agility of the Southern nations with the force and endurance of the Northern. While French history shows us the slow victory of the Romanic over the Germanic elements in the life of the country, English history reveals a contrary tendency, the Germanic elements always more and more obtaining the upper hand, without completely annihilating the Romanic.. The whole cast of English life proves this, for in England the family is the basis of authority and the centre of all right. Family life was, from early times, according to German usage, esteemed high and holy in England, and has always exercised a beneficial influence upon the national education. In the school, on the other hand, the English follow the genuine Romanic model by setting the can above the ken, education above knowledge, living power and mind above dead masses of science; they seek to train