South Canterbury Times, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1882.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 3003, 10 November 1882, Page 2

South Canterbury Times, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1882.

The condition and attitude of France are very disquieting. Most people had placed a good deal of reliance upon the growth of the commercial and the development of the industrial interests of the country, which had been stunted by long years of restlessness and disquiet, and by a fatal passion for military glory. It was thought that the lower classes of French society would share in the general improvement of tone, and cease to be agitated; by revolutionary ideas, or misled by communistic visionaries. Many, even of those who knew French society tolerably well, miscalculated and were over sanguine of improvement. Under Presidents Grevy and De Freycinet there was an unwonted tranquility, and the failure of Gambetta to take the leading position, which it had appeared certain he must attain, indicated a peaceful turn, as gratifying as it was unexpected. It appears, however, that there was more revolutionary fire smouldering than was suspected, and the sentiment of the worst type had been all along generating, and threatening to burst into flame from beneath a thin crust of respectability. France is now again in danger of being given over to anarchy. The Girondists and even the Jacobins has about them, at least Liome elements of grandeur. But the elevated sentiment that inspired Madame Roland is altogether wanting in the calculating, deadly counsels of Socialism. If .France is to have another revolution it will present still more dreadful features than those of 1789, of 1848, or of 1870. It will be a revolution of welllaid plots, of deadly purpose. Again there are signs of a storm ; again the revolutionary flame is on the point of breaking forth and leaping into deadly life. The effect to Europe must be disastrous, and the effect upon Franco herself will be to test to the utmost even her marvellous recuperative power. For this revolution that is imminent will not be a noble effort of the oppressed to obtain that liberty which is their birthright, but a system having for its object only destruction and not comprehending any reconstructive efforts. Among Frenchmen of to-day there is fire, without enthusiasm, and that is a very dangerous thing, The country

has been so long dominated by priests and soldiers alternately that her religion has been changed to absolute Atheism, her chivalry, to ferocity. In this moral desert the fire of revolutionary sentiment is unchecked, and works the most terrible destruction. On the future of France who is bold enough to speculate ?