OUR PARIS LETTER.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 4049, 20 December 1881, Page 2

OUR PARIS LETTER.

(fbom oue.own cobbespondent.) Pabis, October 6. Opinion commences to think that Eochefort and his journal are carrying practical joking too far; were France accustomed to free writingandfr«e public meetings, the nonsense would be simply nonsense, but unfortunately, a fair number of fools accept the clap-trap as gospel. When the Jacobins commenced business, they were only 600 strong, but in the end they ruled, and ruined: the Communists at first counted but l£oo, yet they were thousands in March, 1881. A new political fashion is springing up, that, of the people forming themselves into a tribunal, to accuse, testify against, and condemn some individual more or less obnoxious in their eyes. A step further, and they would be executioners also. One of these gatherings has just taken place. That political virago, Louise Micbel, recommends the cat o' nine tails, and putting into irons of all public oppressors and scheming representatives: one orator indicated that the accused before the Areopagus, if found guilty, ought to be got rid of; he did not even indicate the means. When Felix Pyat spoke in that style, he always alluded to the invaluable aid the ,smallest of pistol balls oould afford in disposing of Napoleon 111. Bespeoting the meeting in qestion, one Lullier was judged, and rowed to the indignation of all honest men—those of posterity included. Two of the indictments were, that at the breaking out of the commune, he connived at the escape from Paris of M. Thiers and his colleagues; nest, permitted a line regiment to follow in their wake, with all' the honors of war, and' lastly accepted money to open the gates of Paris to the regular army in May 1881. Gambettais the next to be put on the cutty stool of repentance; happily, he is presumed to be in Switzerland. Many persons attend these reunions for fan's sake, to applaud the tall talk, and eajoy the -emotions , pfA hearing public persons being abused. The price of admission is only five sous. So far the evil ife~ not important, but might become a serious danger when stormy winds com* menced to blow.

M. Faurelle, in his pamphlet, " France in Ruins," claims to have discovered the cause of all her misfortunes and decadence; it is to be found in the increasing poverty of the soil, and the studied neglect of agriculture., The land being exhausted, cannot afford the necessary stamina to the plants it bears; hence a population insufficiently fed; result, disease, dwarfishness in stature, and diminution of inhabitants. The same cause, the author alleges, has necessitated the lowering of the standard height for conscripts. The latter national misery is not exact; the military surgeons found that the smaller men had just as good neck and thoracic muscles for holding a musket straight as the taller braves.

No doubt the ups and downs of the Commercial Treaty will in due time be dramatised or worked as a feuilleton* The chief difficulty in the whole affair lies in the Legislature having, under the influences of protestation interests, and the incompetency of a Ministry, placed the French negotiators in the impossibility to negotiate. France was quite free to vote the specific duties, but her hand forgot its cunning in concluding that the second party to the bargain would accept suoh on the " swallow it dog " principle. If England desires to renew the Treaty, oreti on

the pseudo-liberal lines of the Cobden Treaty ; if she wishes well even to France herself, she cannot tell the latter too plainly, that her mind is made up to have no treaty, rather than a one-sided affair, and also that the existence of EDglish trade neither depends upon, nor is it at the mercy of French customers. However, it would be a mistake on the part of John Bull to conclude the accession of a Gatubetta ministry would put an end to all the tergiversations on the part of France. M. Gambetta is presumed to be a free trader, but the extreme caution which he has sedulously observed, never, up to the present, to proclaim himself such speak volumes. Individually, be may be as commercially liberal as Napoleon 111, but his Cabinet, like his party, would not be all of his way of thinking. Out of the 560 deputies elected, only two alluded to free trade in their electoral addresses. Further, the political position of M. Gambetta is not at all what it was. After all his noble efforts for his country, after all his sacrifices for the Republic, he is reduced to the daily task of defending Liis political existence, the struggle for life. No one appears to see clearly into the Tunisian affair. Public opinion agrees that it is a bad business, fiocheforb leads the extreme Press in spreading alarm as to the condition of the troops there and the incapacity of the commanders. His writings receive the more attention because his dark breathings contain some truth. Jile accuses half a dozen of leading personages of having organised the seizure of Tunis to fill their money bags.