RELIGION OF THE COMMUNE.

Westport Times, Volume V, Issue 892, 25 November 1871, Page 3

RELIGION OF THE COMMUNE.

The ** Times" quotes from an article in a number of the " Fortnightly Review," signed " Fredrick Harrington," the following words : —" The people of Paris believe not in God, nor 1 in any man. But they have a religion of their own, for which they are ready to die. That religion is the faith that capital and its holders must adapt themselves to nobler uses, or they had better cease to exist." These words the " Times" says, were print because they tell the truth ahout that revolution which has horrified the world by its catastrophes, and because they convey in a narrow compass, the history of the movement from beginning to end. The Commune, proclaimed in the manifesto of the Paris artizans, represented nothing but the means of an end. That end was the violent establishment of their private doctrines on the largest practicable scale. Under the conditions of their programme Paris would have become and remained the Paris of six weeks since—a city in which an organization of armed workmen was the sole depository of power, and a committee of working delegates the sole centre of authority. On these terms they could proceed to action, and either " adapt capital and its holders to nobler uses," or take care that they should cease to exist. They rose in arms against a power which would have interposed on behalf of the nation and forbidden all this. For two mouths together they held the city against France, and then at last, -when France proved too strong for them, they endeavoured to destroy the capital itself before dying in despair. The catastrophe is astounding, it measured against the cause. Men do die, and have died in all ages, f.»r their religion, but never for a "religion" like this. No God, no man, no faith, no hope—nothing but better wages and more 'pleasure. The principle of the revolution now quenched in blood was not a bit grander than that of a tailor's strike. What could have been done with these men ? That, no compromise or middle course was practicable is perfectly plain. No municipal privileges, no political rights, would have satisfied meu who proposed to take all the land and all the money, if possible, from the whole people; if not, at least from the people of Paris."