FRANCE IN THE PRESENT AND FUTURE.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 174, 8 June 1871, Page 6

FRANCE IN THE PRESENT AND FUTURE.

(Daily Telegraph.) The Ist of March, 1871, will for all time be a landmark in the history of France. On that day, it will be said, her humiliation was completed ; for on that day the German troops entered the capital, and the National Assembly ratified the Treaty of Peace by a majority of five to one. Henceforth there will be a new Paris and a new France — the one more jealously watched by the nation, the other shorn of its old claims to occupy the first place in the community of European peoples. And the more narowly that historians scan the details of the Prussian entry into the capital, the deeper will be their sense of the humiliation which it brought. The very insignificance of the force which galloped up to the Arc de Triomph and down the Champs Elysees adds to the insult the sting of contempt ~ . France as well as Paris is utterly crushed. How terribly complete appears her overthrow to those who can judge must surely, we see from the fact that the National Assembly have, by 54<6 votes against 107, accepted the most humiliating terms of peace known to modern history. Before France

lies a task of appalling difficulty. She must reconstruct her railway system, rebuild the streets which have been shattered by shells, replace the bridges which once spanned her rivers, €md^ replenish the stores of her famishin^J peasantry. She must support the army, of unemployed workmen, the crowds of hungry vine dressers, and many thousands of the disbanded soldiers who will now be sent back from captivity; so that her burdens may be increased ten or twenty fold. She must borrow money to reimburse the municipalities of Paris and the other great towns for the vast sums which they have lent to the Government, or have themselves expended in the service of the national defence, or have been forced to hand to the Prussians. She must likewise borrow to compensate the peasantry and the townspeople for what they have lost in requisitions. And, in addition to the prodigious sum that will be required to meet these costs, she must obtaia £200,000,000 to pay the war indemnity. Never before has such a financial problem been placed before any Chancellor of the Exchequer. The terms conceded for the payment of that enormous tribute do, indeed, slightly mitigate the oppressiveness of the burden, since a considerable interval is allowed between each instalment. If, further, we may rely on the latest telegraphic despatches, the weight of the impost will be materially lessened by the deduction of above £20,000,000 — or a tenth of the whole — as an equivalent for that share of the national debt appertaining to the annexed provinces. Yet, taking the most favourable view, the liability is one which by itself might drive Ministers to despair. And that is only the beginning of the mighty task which lies before the' statesmen of France. While the Government is clearing off immense debts with one hand, it mvi be piling up new debts with the other ; for it must at once begin, on a gigantic scale, the work of army organisation. Every available man in the country wiil be converted into a soldier, and the ingenuity of his intellect will be taxed to perfect his military appliances. And why ? Foran undisguised and deliberate purpose — to win back Alsace, to recapture Metz, and to do unto Prussia as Prussiahasdoneunto France. However foolish, wicked, or suici lal may appear to be the aim, that is the national dream and there is not a political party which will dare to preach the lesson of ppac-p. The Legitimists, the Orleanists, the Bonnpartists, and the Republicans, all unite in the cry that France must drill her soldiers, educate her officers, go to the ends of the earth for lessons in fche art of war, furnish herself with the newest weapons of destruction, and, when all is ready, strike. That lesson French mothers will teach to their children, and French priests will not dare to rebuke. In order to win back her lost possessions, France will henceforth in all probability be unscrupulous in her foreign policy. She will make Germany tlse hotbed of Republican plots. Geimany, therefore, must keep on foot a gigantic army, leave the supreme power in the hands of the Junker class, permit herself to be ruled by a caste which is despotism incarnate, keep alive the brutalising military spirit, and postpone the triumph of Liberalism for a whole generation. Russia, Turkey, Austria, Italy, Spain, and England must all follow the example of Prussia, so far as to maintain great armies and to waste the national treasure which is the life of the poor. Because Germany has seized Alsac and Lorraine, the whole of Europe must for twenty years be converted into an armed camp ; and there is not a peasant in France or tke Fatherland, not an agricultural laburer in England, who will not pay for that gigantic blunder. Nor is this fche first time that the community of nations has suffered from the misdeeds of Prussian statemanship. In a striking passage, which we commend to the German people, Maculay describes, with the rhetoric of truth, what a heritage of bloodshed and crime was bequeathed to mankind by the seizure of Silesia : " The whole world sprang to arms. On the head of Frederick is all the blood which was shed in a war which raged many years and in every quarter of the globe,- the blood of the column of Fontenoy, the blood of the mountaineers who were slaughtered at Culloden. The evils produced by his wickedness were felt in lands where the name of Prussia was unknown ; and in order that he might rob a neighbour whom he had promised to defend, black men fought on the coast of Coromandel, and red men scalped each other by the Great Lakes of North America." With like eloquence of condemnation may the Macaulay of the future describe the seizure of Alsace and Lorraine.

French Notes. — A French tourist in London, pointing to a large building, asked an Englishman, "la dat your Palais Royal V " Lord love your stupid head, that's the Fleet Prison .!"— " Stop, sair," said the tourist, " till I write down in my leetle book vat you say." And then he wrote, "Dat is the Palais Royal. Lord Luvet't stupid head, and the fleet is in prison !"