Our Paris Letter.

Manawatu Herald, 30 March 1895, Page 3

Our Paris Letter.

Paris, 15th Feb., 1895. It is inoontestible, that the recent Presidential and Ministerial crisis has resulted in a certain gain to the Radioal-Socialist Party. It is true that it failed to form a Ministry, but it forced the Moderates to proclaim an amnesty for political offences, and it has brought to the front the ques* tion of the Revision of the Constitution, which only a few weeks ago seemed to be dead and buried. Although " urgency " for thia question has been refused by the majority, it takes its place on the Parliamentary roll, and will be discussed when its turn comes. The demand for ur» gency is simply one to take the measure out of its regular place and discuss it at once. The Radicals and Socialists insist, that the Con stitntion blocks the way to what they are pleased to call reforms, and that to it we owe ephemeral Ministers and a continuous series of politic oal convulsions. The Moderates, on the other hand, maintain that the Constitution is not at fault, but the manner in which it is worked. Parliamentary Government, they say, can only work by the action of two strong parties, and it proposed in its turn to take up the reins of Govern* ment, and where these parties do not exist, parliamentary government wants its proper mode of action. The Moderate Republicans are in profound dread of three things. The first is, that their Republicanism should be. suspected ; the second is, that they should be supposed to ally themselves with the Bailie's (memten of the Sight who have m* imnt

adhered to the present form of Government), whose political viers do not differ much from their own ; and the third is, that they should be supposed to have turned Conservative and to have abandoned the policy of perpetual change, dignified by the name of " Social Reforms.'* In short, the Moderate Republicans dread to the thought Conservative, although* if they are not Conservative* there is no reason why the Radicals and Socialists should not take their places and fortn a tladical Socialist Government. ; The Czar's home policy has been very clearly defined by himself on the occasion of the grand reception, which recently took place at St. Petersburg, of delegates from all parts of the Empire, assembled to congratulate the new Czar on his accession to the throne. He said " I am firmly resolved to maintain the principle of autocracy, as the one best suited to the great majority of Russians. This would seem at the first glance to preclude all hope of a change of system in the internal Government of Russia. But such is not the case. The aide of Pobiesonost zeff during the reign of the late Czar was the compulsory unification of all Russians under the aegis of the Greek Church. It was essentially a policy of violence, which the new Emperor, since his accession to the throne, has given unmistakable evidence, that he does not intend to pursue,