The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE. Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning. Saturday, December 3, 1887. THE FRENCH POLITICAL CRISIN.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume I, Issue 75, 3 December 1887, Page 2

The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE. Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning.

Saturday, December 3, 1887. THE FRENCH POLITICAL CRISIN.

Bo just snd fear not; L*t all the ends thou aim'st at ba thy eountry’g, Thy God's, and truth's.

The disturbed state of the French political atmosphere is now almost regarded with a feeling of quiescence, though the seriousness of the question cannot be overlooked. France has had so many successive political changes, none of which have been productive oi contentment, that a general burst up would not come as a great surprise. AU forms of Government have been tried, and all hate failed to give permanent satisfaction, whether as monarchial institutions or the government of the Republic. The old Royalist parties have little influence left, and it is this that has held the Republic so well, in spite of all its mismanagement. The Radicals, in opposing the election of military candidates, are proving what they have learnt by experience. They know what a military dictatorship means, and have learnt that the Army has little sympathy with the mob. Napoleon once, when the mob was surging round the Tuilleries, remarked that he would clear them away very soon with a charge of grape shotThere is a clamor to have the President elected by the people, instead of by the National Assembly. But this is not likely to meet with the support of the more intelligent partizans of the Re" public. What would and does work well in a country like the United States would be altogether unsuited to the circumstances of France. From the peculiar shape which politics always take in the latter country a mob-elected President would mean a military dictator, perhaps after the Boulange stamp, and the first chance he got would see him following in the lines of Napoleon. A for Boulanger, his power rests on his popularity with the mob, and directly that is under-mined, as it has been lately, he is comparatively speaking helpless. Boulanger has fallen from the high pinnacle on which he was recently mounted, never to regain it. The chances are that Freycine will be elected President until the term expires, and it will be hard to say what will be the position when that time arrives. At present everything points towards another of those revolutions which are so frequent in the history of France.

THE AUSTRALIAN SHEARERS. The disputes in Victoria and New South Wales between the Union and non-Unionist shearers will be contemplated with anything but a feeling of satisfaction by those who have the interests of the workmen at heart. When things take the shape they are doing, it is pretty plain the men are playing a losing game, from both the Unionist and non-Unionist point of view. The men themselves appear to be much at fault in their act ons, and if the affairs of the Union are not managed with more tact it is not hard to say who will gain the victory in the long run. It will certainly not be the wageearners, and when the squatters get the whip-hand they will have an argument against the men which they will not hesitate to use to the disadvantage of their employees. When the Union was formed there was a great deal of talk as to the benefits to be derived from such an association, but when the theory has been put into practice there is lamentable failure somewhere. “ Union is strength,” we know, but when that strength is it will not be long retained unless it is tempered with wisdom. The work’ng men should take care and not follow the bad example so often set them by the squatters, and when they have reason to be satisfied with the terms allowed them they should be content and not make further exacting claims. Unionism is a grand principle until it is abused, when it becomes a curse to those whose interests it is intended to guard. This the Australian Union will find to their cost before the strife they are now carrying on is finally ended. If there is any truth in the repoit that some of the Union men have attempted to poison their competitors, then we say they are despicable cowards, unworthy the name of working men ; but such reports must be accepted with reservation, as being probably the concoction of spiteful enemies.