PARIS.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 19, Issue 1502, 10 December 1872, Page 2

PARIS.

fFBOM OUB OWN COKEESPOKCreKT.J October 5, 1872. The French Revolution was said to devour, like Saturn, its own children. This appetite for destruction is still abroad, and Republicans bid fair to devour the Republic. Gambetta, who ought to practise some modesty after his many faults, has, by his \iolent and'unnecessary harangues within the last fortnight, seriously damaged the prospects of every form of republic here. The timid, afraid, not to fight individually, but nervously desiring to avoid plunging their country into civil war, have taken alarm at the tyranny of the Tribune, as being more intolerable than that of a King. Gambetta has thrown off the mask of prudence and moderation that ill became him ; the comedy of uniting Conservative and Social Republicans has finished. So much the better fur France, that stands in no need of hypocrisies. "I am a republican," said a witty Frenchman a few days ago, «' b;.t do not belong to the party republican." Now Gambetta will admit no one within the precincts of his temple who does not put on the wedding garment of a carmagnole and the Phrygian cap. M. Thiers belongs to a broader religion ; he invites ail those to rally to his form of republic —where there are no exclusions—who believe the restoration of any of the three pretenders uot only to be an impossibility but a danger. The destinies of France are uot in the hands of M. Gambetta, and his turbulence will be conquered by the prudence of M. Theirs. He can be again ostracised as he was in February, 1871; it was his feigned subriety that led to his moral re* culi. In the meantime the political situ ition is complicated, and if matters become very bad, Napoleon is ready at a beck to make short work of anarchy. Any Prussians that may be in Paris cannot igno;e the fact that the AlsatianLorraiuers prefer France to Qermany* These poor people, who have abandoned all to follow la belle France, arrive in the capital like regiments—men, women, and children. They carry all their fortune in a basket or bundle. Frirnds await their arrival at the railway station, and volunteers to guide and advise, uot the unknown but the visitors, are numcrous. All the immigrants demand is work. I have noticed honest laborers requesting to be employed to sweep the streets till something better turned up. Give the expatriated the humblest of work, but do not insult their misery by any oiler of charity. It brings tears to one's eyes to witness the old of both sexes, so fresh, clean, and brave, supported by .their graud-ehil.tren along the Boulevards, looking awe struck at their new world. Talk to them—they speak half German, hall' French, or no French as all—and they will joyfully tell you how happy they feel at having escaped "dying Prussians." Young girls from 12 to 14 years of age, blonde as wheat, were making and selling toy-brooms. A gentleman looking on purchased some dozens of them, throwing to the.girls a handful of gold ; then he went about selling each trifle for a franc, and in a few moments his stock was exhausted; Paris, no more than France, will forget to provide for her faithful children, and those forced to remain ia desolate Alsace will live green in the memory also. Germany hitherto boasted that she was delivering Alsace and Lorraine from their unnatural master, France that the strayed sheep were returning to the fold. There can be no illusion now on the subject. Alsace and Lorraine have proved to be as French as the Normans and the Maneillais. Perhaps the " psychological moment " for Alsatian love for Father-, land has not yet arrived. Austria awaited sixty years lor that moment to arrive in Venetia, but it never came; and that annexed territory was her drag-chain at Sadowa. She, too, had her Metz fortress —the famous quadrilateral ; it fell, not by famine or siege, but by threatemug Yienua. Af'rer all Bismarck did not know France, He believed she was crushed out of the family of nations by his terrible peace treaty.. He sees her to-day with more of the elements of vitality and real liberty than is to be'ibund in united Germany. In those parts of their character coming under the generic name of •* lightness," as reflected m their theatres

and their journals, the French are what they were under Louis XIV., the July Monarchy, and the Second Empire. But the new France must be sought in increased application to work, in fresh thrift, in the exposure to the full light of day of what is rotten in her system of administration, and the fundamental reorganization of her public institutions. She is distracted by the competing and disturbing claims of three dynasties, and the divisions of two Republics. But whilst partizms cry aloud for their pear liar saint to rule over them, not a voice is heard desiring to be other than French. It i 3 this perfect homogeneity that forms the aegis of France, constitutes her Good Fairy, raises her when she falls, proves a cordial for her wounds. She believes she is an essential unit in the world, and when she resumes her rank after being m severely whipped and put in the corner for being bold, appears in a new out-fit of institutions, becomes caressed by those who know her strength, then Germany may feel uneasy about her Venctia. M. Thiers is more annoyed or occupied about the execution of a new com <• mercial treaty with England than the political gambols of Gambetta. That treaty is the key-stone of his financial system, and involves an immediate relief to home-taxation. If France has to bend to the omnipotent will of M. Thiers in his whole or partial doctrines of protection, it can only be pending his reign. The nation has grown rich by free trade, and will preserve the goose that lays the golden egg. It is his terrible obstinacy to impose his views, not from any spirit of retaliation against foreigners or parties, that M. Thiers labors to convert all the world to his worn out ideas. He is now on the road to Damascus, and people calculate upon his immediate conversion. Beiug an old man he must, be excused for a weakness for old ways. Then again French public opinion is in a hacknied state: it is only now Monsieur is beginning to take his walks abroad, and opening the eyes of the Boulevardlers to the fact that there are oiher countries iu the world worth peeping at besides their awn. [To be concluded to-raorrow.J

We take tie following from the Daily Southern Cross, December 2 : —The ad journed debate on the second reading of the Representation Bill conies on today in the Provincial Council. It is to be hoped that there will be a largo attendance of member?*, and that the principles of the amendment proposed by Mr Creighton will be affirmed. There cannot be a doubt that the functions of the Provincial Government and Council have been xQ.ry much curtailed by recent legislation, as was pointed out by the mo\*er of the amendment; and we agree with him in saying that the public business could be nine!) move efficiently performed, and at the same time more economically, if ihe Superintendent had a seat in the Provincial Council, and dispensed with the advice of au Executive chosen by the Council. The fact is, ihe farce of responsible Government has been played quite long enough here. What the province wants is to have the administrative functions of the Government performed without parade or ostentation, but with efficiency and simplicity. The proposal of the Executive to add one member to the already Council should hi scouted by every person who wishes well to Auckland. A council of two dozen members at the outside would be ample. With a Go-.mcil so constituted, and the Superintendent, as a member, 1 conducting the Government business,'' we might hope that Provincial institutions would rihe in public estimation. At present they are held in very low esteem; and the adoption of tlie Representation Bill, sent down by the Execu live, would lower il stiii further.