THE FRANCE OF TO-DAY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8179, 11 July 1906, Page 3

THE FRANCE OF TO-DAY.

Dealing with the political outluok in France the Saturday Review -states:—We are do opponents of social eoonomlos Socialism, we believe, oootains in jt the germ of truth; but it cannot work unassisted by other influences whiob it is the prime aim of Socialists in France to destroy. Without regliRion, and directed by the average man, democracy becomes materialism and degenerates into contradictory Anarchism. The socialism whioh has laid hold of the working olasaea in Franoe when stripped of the mere verbiage which oratory may® throw -around It, means nothing but (he increase of personal comfort and an endeavour to fill the poobets of the many from the pockets of the few. This is a purely selfish oult, in which the nation as such is lost sight o,f. The Englishman, with all his faults', still has an outlook upon the affairs of his country in genera], but the ordinary Frenchman is ludiorously limited to the details of his own locality and the pursuit of petty distinctions. In fact, tbe general com dition of Franoe recalls with sturtling similitude the stite of tbe Greek: provinoes during tbe earlier Empire. There is a great diffusion of personal comfort among all classes, much cleverness and intellectual alertness, coupled with artistiu capacity on a considerable, but not a high, scale, a growing dislike for dangerous adventure, and a great desire for personal distinction of a trivial kind. Scepticism and cynicism as to religion and all high ideals are general £ave in brilliant exceptions. We gladly admit that there is much capacity for higher aims among a certain class, but unfortunately they have allowed the control of events to slip from them, and the'country at large maintains that an indifference to its wider destinies which is shown by the recent elections. Anyone who has read that remarkable book "La Terro Qui Meurt," will have grasped the facr, that tbe clans whiob was oqoe looked upon as rooted to tbe soil is now drifting into the towns, and demands of the Government "panem," if not censes." France, who for long led thejworld in political ideas, now aspires to show the way to a dull uniformity of physical ease and parochial indifferentism.