be caught in the act. Such answers as we | But the Philistine is so delightfully stupid have suggested to the impeachment of Louis as to be one of those good members of Napoleon are precisely similar to the pleas society who make a fortune, and live re that might be suggested in favour of Bill spectably, or, at the worst die in the odour Sykes. Caligula could be defended on of sanctity and pecuniary debt. Napoleon similar grounds; so could Fouquier Tin- the Great, on the other hand, added the ville; so, whatever may have been the selfishness of a Philistine to the intellect of opinion of Macaulay, could Barrère; and a Titan. He was a monster, not because so could that paragon of activity and filial he lacked a conscience, but, as Prevostpiety, Troppmann, who killed a whole Paradol justly indicates, because the strength French family in order to provide for his of his conscience bore no relation to the poor relations. strength of his brain. His aim was to make himself the first man in all the world, and then, let us not doubt, to give the world such justice of law, such success of commerce, such breadth of culture, and such grandeur of aim as it had never known before. All things were to be done for mankind, if only mankind would permit the work to be executed by Napoleon, and only allow the glory to be his. All things must be done by him. whatever might be the cost in tears and blood. And, indeed, how trivial must the tears and blood of a few million people, during one paltry generation, have seemed to a Napoleon, with his eyes forecasting the results of a thousand years, and a time when history should speak of Napoleon in the same breath with Cæsar and Charlemagne! It was as natural for such a man to waste a million lives as it is for a British Philistine to effect a huge transaction on the Stock Exchange, and thus to beggar his neighbour, if he receive early intelligence of the fact that France has declared war against Prussia, or that the army of Marshal MacMahon has capitulated at Sedan. The Philistine cannot un derstand how a Napoleon can be so wicked, for precisely the same reason as he cannot understand Kant's "Philosophy of the Unconditioned." He fails to follow the windings, and the impulses, and the flights of a Satanic intellect, not because he himself is too pure to have a sympathetic comprehension of the promptings of evil, but because he is too unimaginative to conceive crimes of Napoleonic grandeur, and too stupid to follow the reflective process of a Napoleonic brain. And yet there have been Philistines whose own career in the world of commerce had somewhat of a Napoleonic sweep. There have been speculators for whom the world has seemed too small. And as railway, or as cotton, or as stock-jobbing kings, those men have been mighty conquerors, with grand aims and without scruples, the artificers of colossal work, and the authors of the ruin which has fallen on a million homes. Such men, if they were able to analyze the motives by which they have been driven from the slum of the huckster

However, it is a weary task to shriek out accusations against the Ex-Emperor; the task of interest is to understand the man, by looking into what he is pleased to call his conscience, as we should look into a curious watch, that always revealed its presence by loud ticking, and always told a lie about the time of day. The real explanation of his acts is, we believe, to be found in the theory by which Prevost-Paradol accounts for the moral aberrations of the First Napoleon. In perhaps the most remarkable passage ever penned by the unhappy journalist, it is contended that the great Napoleon wrote on the page of history an everliving record of selfish ambition and gigantic crime, not because he was morally worse than the mass of men, but because in point of intellect he was immeasurably greater. Morally, Napoleon I. was an average man, that is to say, he was selfish enough to prefer himself and his family to the nation, which had cast itself at his feet, and given its destiny into his keeping. He did, on a vast scale, what is done on a small by the average British Philistine, who fancies that to make one's family comfortable, and to pay one's rates, and to undersell one's neighbour is the whole duty of man. But the average British Philistine is so wretchedly endowed with brain, and so incapable of following any train of thought to its logical result, that he cannot conceive any aims grander than those of the counting-house, or any code of right and wrong other than that furnished by the parson. Thus his selfishness has little room to act. He is like a cow tethered in a field of clover, and with a bandage over its eyes, so that it cannot stray beyond a small circle, or see that the sweet clover stetches far beyond its little orbit in a billowy expanse of green. If the ordinary British Philistine were as richly endowed with intellect as with selfishness, these islands would be made uninhabitable in a week, and the children of light would be forced to beg that Von Moltke would smite the Philistines" from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same."

to the throne of the commercial dictator, ligion, and in his uncle a Messiah. He could reveal with terrible_vividness the worshipped at the shrine of Napoleon, and temptations that lure on a Bonaparte from the one aim of his life was to ride into suthe position of a humble citizen of the Re- preme power over France on the wings of public to that of an autocrat. Such men his uncle's fame, his uncle's system of govare seized with the idea that it would be a ernment, his uncle's schemes for universal magnificent feat to bridge the Channel, peace. He found Louis Philippe in the since the link would make France and Eng-way, but why should he permit his way to land friends for ever, and since, before all be blocked by a man who was the type of things, the iron highway from island to con- bourgeois vulgarity, and whose aims were tinent would give undying fame and bound- desperately common-place; whose crowning less power to him by whom it should be ambition was to enrich his family, and executed. So, in season and out of season, whose parade of love for the plebeians was the plans are thrust on the notice of the so hollow that, as Heine sarcastically said, world. The world is careless; it must be he always used the same old dirty glove to stimulated by eloquent prophecies. It is cover the hand with which he shook the sceptical; it must be convinced by facts. hands of his unwashed subjects? Louis It is dull of comprehension; the facts must Philippe must be put out of the way. So be arrayed in the garb of that rhetoric which must the Republic, with its blustering, its uses adjectives only of the superlative quarrelling, and its inability to comprehend degree. The world fails to see the meaning the grandeur of the scheme which had been of facts; it must be taught truth by means unfolded by Prince Louis Bonaparte in the of lies. It does not know its own interest; comments on the ideas of his uncle. A so it must be treated like a baby by the coup d'état must be effected, and the ReNapoleon of the Stock Exchange. And public must bear the blame of the unfortuyet one day the Napoleon finds that, in spite nate necessity. The subsequent massacre of all his good intentions, the mighty scheme was an unhappy incident; but the Republic for binding nations together by means of must bear the blame of that too; Persigny iron rods has signally failed; that the sea had sworn to that fact with abundant gusto. has washed the fabric away; that his If untruths must be told and lives sacrificed, schemes have driven a thousand families to in order to found the Empire, the plan, eat the bread of charity or toil; and that, after all, had the warrant of all time. For, strange as the fact may seem, he, the Na- whatever might be said by the theologians, poleon of his age, is pursued into exile by evil had uniformly been done in order to the curses of those to whom he meant to be bring forth good. That was Nature's plan; a second Providence. that was the only plan open to a great statesman; and that should be the plan of Louis Napoleon. When men talked of morality, he asked what they meant, and showed, by a small expenditure of subtlety, that they were building houses upon the sand. It was easy for so able a man to demolish the foundations of the Philistine morality, and easy to laugh at the bugbears which the priests had instilled into his wife,

Thus we get a clue to the nature of the man who, after destroying the French Republic, and ruling France for twenty years with sagacity and success, plunged into the most foolish as well as the most unprovoked war recorded in modern history, and ended his career in the mightiest capitulation known to military annals. The personal ability of Napoleon III. has been exaggerated by his admirers. He does not stand on a passion for masses as well as for crinothe same plane as his uncle, to whom nature line. And, moreover, the system of Imhad given one of those originating and or- perialism would shower such abundant ganizing brains which she fashions once in blessings on France and Europe as could a thousand years. Nor, in diplomatic sub- never rain down from the arid sky of a Retlety, fertility of resource, or sagacious au- public or a Monarchy. Italy should be free dacity of plan, is he the equal of such men and united; Mexico should be a great Emas Cavour and Bismarck. But he acquired pire, the representative in America of the immense power from the profound study of Latin races, and the rival of the United one political system, and the fanatical belief States; while France should be made as in one political idea. He was a Bonapartist rich as England by the influences of freeby conviction as well as by blood. The trade. The scheme did not lack grandeur; worship of his uncle's name, and the study it lacked nothing but justice and truth. It of his uncle's plans, had taught him to regard forgot but one thing the existence of a the system of Imperialism with some such moral law. It has failed, as all such schemes faith as the devotee regards the mission of will fail in a world of freedom. A high the Church. In Imperialism he found a re- priest of the religion of Selfishness, Louis

Napoleon now expiates in exile the sins which he committed in the day when the magic of his uncle's name, and the worship of his uncle's system, gave him such power as comes, perhaps, only once in a generation to any of the children of men.

From The Economist.
AUSTRALIAN FEDERATION.

different form enlarges the view of their electors, tempts them to overlook petty drawbacks in their representatives, and gradually fosters that first of political virtues, a readiness to make sacrifices. For instance, a central Government in Australia would very soon require the control and the produce of the Customs, now the sheet-anchor of Australian taxation. Hence a new and a higher view of the pressure inflicted by tariffs, a readiness to endure direct taxation, and a new and much-wanted appreciation of the uses of economy. The pride of THE movement reported from Australia nationality moreover, sure to spring up in a in favour of federation has, we imagine, the federation with a special name and a sepafull consent of the Colonial Office, even if rate place in the world, is an element in it was not suggested from this side, and we political culture, and so is the sense of trust that as it advances it will receive the community with other and allied States warm support of the English public. From situated in the same region, united by any possible point of view except one the similar interests, and having for a common federation of these colonies will be an ad- object equal burdens. The Australians vantage to themselves, to Great Britain, have hitherto had none of these things, their and the world. It might be a disadvantage relation to England having been too much if Great Britain ever contemplated the idea that of the grown-up child to its parent of holding them by force, but as that is that is, no disciplinary relation at all, exgiven up even by the strongest Imperialists cept in extreme cases recurring but once in the objection may be dismissed without dis- a generation. Then federation is better for cussion. Federation will be an advantage England, because the colonies must either to the Australians themselves, because it be allies or dependents, and in either case will introduce into their politics just that an increase in their power must be an addiamount of complication which is necessary tion to ours. This is peculiarly the case in to produce statesmen. The defect of colo- Australia, which is clearly adapted by its nial politics as a training school for Govern- position to become a great maritime State; ment is a certain simplicity, or to take a to maintain fleets rather than armies; to phrase from a different region of thought-perform, in fact, functions which can be a certain lowness of type, as of an organism performed effectively only by considerable not yet fully developed. The colonists Powers. Any country can have an army if have no frontiers, no foreign affairs, no external yet ever present restraining influence; they have no one to consult but themselves, nothing to fear except a change in local public opinion. The consequence is that, like Anglo-Indians, they become very clever but very narrow reasoners, think much too little of obstacles, and are apt to grow into vehement doctrinaries of the parochial kind. Federation does much to correct all this. The relations between the provinces and the Central Government soon require delicate adjustment, self-restraint, a habit of regarding circumstances other than those of the immediate locality, which all tend to widen men's minds, and take them out of an otherwise narrow groove. The sense of immense and general responsibilities solemnizes politicians, while the same sense in a

it will put its whole people into the field, but only a country of a certain width of resource can keep an armed fleet at sea. Ireland could maintain a great army, but not great squadrons. And finally the experiment must, in the long run, be beneficial to the world. It is impossible to glance at the map and not see that the work of exploiting," civilizing, and, may be, of conquering the Southern half of the shattered Continent, which we call the Indian Archipelago, with its magnificent islands, savage races, and tropical products, must fall ultimately to the rulers of the Australian Continent, that we are too far off, Holland too weak, and all other nations too occupied or too indifferent. That great task will be much facilitated by the creation of a central Government.

From The Economist.

DO THE CONDITIONS REQUISITE FOR A

STABLE GOVERNMENT EXIST IN FRANCE?

THE new Government in France was made according to custom. By long and painful experience, France has attained what may be called a routine in revolutions. First, the old Government breaks down, and everyone sees it must fall; then the sitting Assemblythe Corps Législatif, the Chambre des Deputés, or whatever be the name at the time- votes that the Government shall go and begins to occupy itself with the various substitutes; it entertains such and such motions, and hears this or that speech upon the subject; when all at once the mob of Paris rushes in- expels both speakers and hearers, and names a Provisional Government such as suits it, or rather such as suits the views and wishes of the leaders who have, for the time being, the command of it. This process has been repeated so often that Paris expects it, and France yields to it; but, unhappily, this is not the end of the series. After a short interval, the Government, thus nominated by the mob of Paris, quarrels with that mob. The Government, as a Government, wishes to keep law and order, and then it becomes opposed to the mob which wants something else than law and order. The mob was urged to name the new Government by strong passions and vague hopes; in a few days it finds those hopes still distant, and those passions still ungratified; it soon begins to hate its own creature, in a little while after it is in arms against it. Every Government thus nominated by an insurrection is soon presented with the inevitable problem-shall we yield to a second insurrection which wants to put new rulers in our place, or shall we resist it by force? The mob-named Government has to ask itself shall we yield to the mob or shall we resign? As long as Governments yield to the mob the Revolution continues; whenever the Government begins to coerce the mob the reaction commences. And that reaction, according to its strength, continues perhaps months, perhaps years, till a new opportunity comes, a new mob succeeds, and a new revolution begins. The Empire which has now fallen was but the end of a strong reaction caused by the terror of a long revolution. Is there reason to hope that the new Republic will be more lasting than its predecessors that the French nation has reached the end of its many changes, or is materially nearer to it?

To this question we fear the answer that is much the most likely to be right is the negative. Events often confound probabil

ity, especially in France (and we shall be glad to be wrong); but still every appearance shows that Europe has not now to deal with the permanent Government in France, but only with one of many ephemeral Governments - that the Republic is not to be counted on for duration any more than its predecessors that, perhaps, the pre-requisites of a stable Government do not exist in France, and that if they do they are very difficult to find and satisfy.

The commonest aid to stability—an ancient Government resting on recognized dignity and ineradicable veneration — it is plain the French have not and cannot have. After eighty years of change their scene of politics is still a tabula rasa. They have had eleven Governments in that time, with their average duration of seven years each, and such an experience is fatal to hereditary veneration. The mass of the English people obey Queen Victoria without knowing why or wishing to know why, and England is coherent because they do so. The only approach to such a feeling in France was loyalty to the Empire. Much, very much, may he said against the first Napoleon, but after all this remains that scarcely any character and scarcely any career were more fitted to awaken and to live in the popular imagination. The French peasantry knew of nothing before and thought of nothing after him. The second Napoleon had no similar glorious qualities; but he had more homely attractions. For eighteen years he gave all Frenchmen all peasants and all working men a greater amount of happiness than any one before him. Though not fit to attract a race, it seemed as if he was exactly fit to rivet a race before attracted. But now that is over; the happiness of the Empire is turned into pain, and its glory into ignominy. The surrender of Sedan will be remembered as long as "the sun of Austerlitz;" and the memory of conscript sons, wrung from home only to die or be defeated, is sad and bitter in every French village. Only this spring there was a kind of vague hope that some kind of free or half-free Empire might cement the active mind of France with its inert mass of prejudice. But now such a hope is so irrecoverable that it is difficult, even to those who wrote and said so, to understand that they ever believed it. There is no government now possible in France that is helped by an hereditary attachment or the prestige of glory. The Empire was the only government which had a pretence of being such, and that has fallen so as to dispel its glory and to destroy all affection for it.

France is then left to a Government of

pure reason

66

to arms and to the streets, and settles the victory there. If the Republic asks France not for a Chamber but for a President, the result will be the same in essence. The President will be, as Louis Napoleon was, the nominee of the country; while the Re public was, like the present Republic, the choice of the towns.

at least to make a Govern- two combined how can you make anything? ment on grounds of pure argument and The antagonism is as perfect as between reason. But at once comes the difficulty plus and minus; you can make up no comthat there is in France a great want of what pound; you can find no intermediate term; Lord Bacon called "dry light." Every you must choose between the two. opinion there is, in the Baconian language, The selection can, we fear, only be made steeped in the humours of the affections." by force; hitherto at least it has been so. There is no large number and no powerful Paris is France for the purpose of making a order of persons holding opinions on the Government, but it is not France for the purgrounds of reason or argument. Poor pose of keeping a Government. The ParProvost-Paradol used to maintain that the isians put in a Republic by revolution educated bourgeoisie in Paris and in a few resting more or less on socialism and the other towns was such a body, but he ad- artisans. The Republic, as its nature remitted its powerlessness, and he was him- quires, appeals to the people-that is, to self an example of it. When he became a the country. In response to the appeal candidate for Nantes, he could not obtain back comes an assembly full of dislike to votes enough to make a decent minority. the socialistic Republic-above all things Neither the party for the Empire nor the anxious for property-full of the panic of party against it cared for him and his reasons. the proprietary peasantry. And then beBut in default of political reasons there are gins the strife between the conservative in France two intense political passions-Chamber and the innovating mob-a strife the passion of property among the country which is too keen and internecine to be peasants, and the passion for socialism confined to words only which soon takes among the town ouvriers. And, unhappily, these passions are entirely opposed. Socialism" is an obscure term, and the idea in the minds of those who cleave to it is of the vaguest and wildest kind; still, on the whole, it means a system wishing to amend property a system incompatible with present property. The passionate part of the Republicans in 1848, the only part of them who were eager and many, meant more or less distinctly what Louis Blanc said distinctly. He aimed avowedly at a system in which wages received should be proportionate not to work done but to wants felt. He would have given a man with many children much and a man with few children little, and he would have taxed without limit existing property for that object. A still more violent reasoner invented the celebrated phrase "La propriété, c'est le vol," or "Property is robbery." And this is only a strict deduction from the elementary wish of socialists that all men are to "start fair." In that case all inherited property is unjust, and all gifts among the living by which the children of the rich become better off than the children of the poor are unjust too. Both violate the equality of the start; both make life an adjusted and handicapped" race -an existence where accidental advantages impair or outweigh intrinsic qualities. Roughly it may be said that the main desire of the city socialists in France, on grounds more or less honest, is to attack property; and that the sole desire of the country peasants is, on grounds more or less selfish, to maintain property. And between the two how can you mediate? or, out of the

And the worst is that the most desirable Governments for France, as a philosopher or at any rate as an Englishman would judge, are very popular nowhere. The political Republic-the Republic without socialism-the Orleanist monarchy-appeal neither to the passions of the country nor to those of the towns. The peasant does not connect them with his terre; the ouvrier does not connect them with his schemes. They rest on pure reason, and are weak accordingly. The Parliamentary system - the best form of free Government, as we believe is an exotic in France, and has never yet thriven there. And the defect goes very deep. Frenchmen as yet have never shown themselves able to bear exciting discussion. A French Assembly at a critical moment is not a deliberating Senate, but a yelling mob. Everybody speaks or cries; no one hears; and an ineffectual President rings incessantly the bell which calls members to order, but to which no member attends. Outside it is the same. Each man reads his own newspaper, becomes more and more enamoured of its "logic," but he does not read the journals of his opponents. He does not put his first principles side by side with theirs and see fairly which is best. French parties are more like sects in religion than like our Eng