[From the Times, June 30, 1848.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume V, Issue 344, 18 November 1848, Page 3

[From the Times, June 30, 1848.]

If the tragedy just acted in the neighbouring capital could he referred to extraordinary and peculiar causes with which England had nothing ,to do, we might sit down as spectators, and take a very tranquil sort of interest in the horrors of the story. Were it a matter of faction, or of ancient grudge, a conflict of creeds or a disputed succession, we should turn with ,mu.ch complacency to the happier lot of our own dingy metropolis. But this is not the oase.i As we have already observed, however mischievous the character and designs of the leaders, the circumstances of the Paris insurrection exhibit much that is unfortunately common to all other capitals. We see there 150,000 men who, having hitherto depended on various unproductive employments, are vow unemployed, and consequently. starving. After struggling for many months with poverty, and exhausting their savings, they have closed with a chimerical Communist system, the plausible pretences , of which' have been the solace of their tedious' distress. They have overthrown the monarchy which failed to employ them, and established" a social republic which promised to supply that omission. For four mpnths, thenew Government, at an intolerable cost, has endeavoured to. fulfil its impossible undertaking. The nation would bear it no longer. " The Government found France leaguing against Paris, with a serious intention and fair probability of smothering the drones in their hive. After long delays, after dallying with the mischief and after abundant warnings, an effort was at last made. The unprofitable swarms of the ateliers nationaux were to be set to task-work and draughted to! the provinces. That was the sigal. Indeed, it must be confessed that earthwork per cubic yard, banishment to the Loire and the Ga-

ronne, and competition with sturdy peasants, was but a mockery of relief to tasteful and sickly artisans. The multitude saw their doom and resisted. They have been either pacified or destroyed. The insurrection has been put down', but it is impossible to forget that its causes remain. What will Paris do with its more than a hundred thousand ouvriers out of work, and its twenty thousand Garde Mobile P We repeat that they make up half the male adults of the city. They dethroned Louis Philippe, who' certainly had strained every nerve to employ them. They reduced Lamartine to a series of humbling expedients. They embarrassed and all butextinguished the National Assembly. They transferred themselves to the shoulders of the new Executive, and when it tried to throw them off they rebelled. General Cavaignac has at once conquered and succumbed. He has destroyed thousands, but is feeding the survivors. The difficulty remains exactly as'before, excepting that the terrible episode, which has just varied the history of the question is not likely to smooth the way to a satisfactory softrtion. When the dead are buried, and the pittance granted by the Assembly is exhausted, what will be done with a hundred thousand hungry workmen and their families ? If we seem to press the question with an odious importunity, it is because England is interested in the reply. Ou>- readers are well aware that many branches of trade are suffering an increasing depression. Such is the fact, whatever the causes. In the metropolis almost every class of workpeople finds less and less demand for its services. From the north we have the most lamentable accounts. The West Riding finds that anarchy and war interfere very seriously with the foreign demand for its woollens. Only last week many of the iron furnaces in Staffordshire were blown out. It is evident that as long as unquiet and distrust shall continue there will be less demand, less production, less wealth, less prosperity, comfort, and well-being. Let no class whatever imagine for a moment that it will be safe against the operation of an universal cause. In France the country shares the fortune of the town. The proprietors cannot get their rents, or even let their farms. The farmers have no hold on their debtors. Lenders on mortgage, who constitute no small part of the wealthier occupants of Paris, can get neither capital nor interest. Everybody from caution or necessity is spending less and less. It is so in London at this moment. The shops which supply the superfluities of life already bear witness to the fears or the poverty of their usual customers. If these symptoms occur at Midsummer, and in the heart of the season, what may be apprehended before winter is over 1 It is not premature to suggest that we may possibly have our myriads out of work, and with nothing to dq but swallow the absurd reveries or impudent delusions of Communist lecturers and writers. Hence the home interest we feel in the present fortunes of France. We must not give way, however to these gloomy anticipations without stating at the same time what is in our favour. The good sense of our people is greatly in our favour. They will not attempt to revive trade by the ingenious device of a rebellion. They will not' try to mitigate by riot a distress which has already been aggravated by the apprehensions of the public. They know that, whatever they are suffering, they can not mend matters by barricades, by assassinations and by throwing upon Government the cost of counter preparations. They know that if experienced rulers cannot meet the difficulty, raw theorists and rash adventurers, even if they are respectable and honest, will not do much better. They will not write their troubles in letters of blood. They will not add massacre to famine. We say this of the En- j glish and Scotch, and would say it of the whole Irish people also, were it not that we should be contradicted. There are madmen or charlatans in Ireland who assure us they do really intend to follow the bloody and unprofitable example of Paris. They tell us again, for the hundredth time, that now they will certainly rebel. At their special request, and from a certain respect to all positive assertions, we will allow them to be an exception to the pacific qualities we have ascribed to the bulk of our countrymen ; yet we cannot forget the immense difference ■which has always prevailed between their words and their deeds. Another point very greatly in our favour is, that we possess in the native institutions of this country a powerful antidote to the poisonous doctrines of Communism. Republicanism, and Socialism have in vain attacked a constitution under which the poor man has hitherto had a title to work or relief. Here was the weak point of unfortunate France. The moment the Republic was proclaimed in February the victors of the barricades extorted from the Provisional Government adecree, which to this day is part of the law of France,

that the State wonld find work for all its citizens. The ouvriers felt as if their fortune was made when this principle was established. Nobody, however, in this country was blind to the fact that under the peculiar circumstances of Paris, and under the social insti1 tutions of France, it would be utterly impossible to carry out this principle. There is all the difference in the world between the state of property in England and France. Here we give perfect freedom of operation to agriculture, manufacture, and commerce, and to the disposition of property. We encourage the growth and accumulation of wealth. In Return we throw upon real property the burden of the poor ; and the burden is not too great for the bearer. It is not so with our neighbours. For half a century they have adopted a totally different system. They have vainly endeavoured to eradicate poverty by a perpetual subdivision of property. The result, after two generations, is a nation of petty proprietors, scarcely able to pay their taxes, and the interest of their mortgages, on the one hand, and of workpeople without either employers or almoners on the other. When property is treated as a positive evil, and jealously kept down, even such a Poor Law as we have had is impracticable ; much more the sweeping abstraction thrust upon the Provisional Government in February. France has been laid open to the delusions of Communism through ti is defect in her institutions. She had no poor law. The unemployed and starving myriads of Paris eagerly caught at an extravagant dogma which professed to supply the deficiency. They threw upon the Sate the whole responsibility of procuring and organizing their permanent employment. The experiment has been made, and has failed. The new Executive were compelled by the state of their Exchequer to give up the cobweb system of the ateliers nationaux, and to substitute task-work and employment on useful undertakings. The ouvriers clamorously appealed to the February decree, and were answered by Lamartine that he did not refuse employment, but only insisted upon actunl work. Hence the insurrection, and hence the fact that the catastrophes of February and of June have both arisen from the demands of unemployed workpeople, and the want of a systematic provision for their employment or relief.