FRANCE.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 11131, 25 January 1899, Page 3

FRANCE.

HER LATEST NAVAL INVENTION.

Beceived January 24, 10.45 p.m. Paris, January 23. Large public subscriptions have been made in Paris and the provinces for the construction of a submarine boat. Bermn, January 23. German critics are sceptical as to the success of the new gunboat invention, but M. Loakroy, the French Minister for Marine, regards it as a great success. M. do Blowitz writes to The Times : — I met to-day a Reactionary and /Conservative who is an uncompromising. enemy of the Republic. He said to me t — "We French Conservatives are now in a critical situation which might lead to an irretrievable disaster. We are not fit for prolonged opposition. The First Republic did not last long, and the Second still less. There was not time for us to be annihilated. But we do not know how to oppose a Government. We do not excite fear, for we raise no barricades and make no revolts. We conspire, indeed, but if wo have not the good fortune to find a strong man our conspiracies melt away or end in ridicule, like that of Boulanger. ■We want a Napoleon. We want a Monarchy of some kind, military or Legitimist, or almost military or Legitimist, with a democratic mask deceiving only simpletons. The present Republic is lasting too long. Our patrimony is disappearmg from, our inability to increase it and from the steady increase in the cost of living. Everything, indeed, is done to reduce that patrimony, and fresh taxes are contemplated at our expense and for the benefit of the masses. When these are passed our ruin will be at hand. " The hope of a restoration becomes more and more remote. Our pretenders are most discouraging. The Duke of Orleans, who is execrably advised or self-willed, has had the amazing idea of rushing into the Dreyfus fray. He has placarded a ridiculous proclamation, in which he said, 'We will not tolerate it' (revision). He 'has thus" become the pretender of a party which will be crushed by revision. He thought thereby, like M. Faure, to march with the army, but what is comprehensible in a chief magistrate is ridiculous and mischievous in a pretender, who ought to aim at being the man of all, not of a party. He is further off power than ever. Prince Victor, who has no sense of proportion and signs himself ' Napoleon ' without feeling himself a pigmy, has no belief in his role of pretender, which, in spite of occasional hits, he plays without any effect. Ido not speak of Prince Henry of Orleans, who beats the air like a fly in a room. He would fain become President of the Republic, but he is neither fish nor flesh. He embraces Esterhazy, now rallies to the Republic, and then severs himself from it. Nor will I speak of Prince Louis, who is a chimera. If a man ever turns up to supersede the Republic it will be none of these, but an outsider with a new troupe, in which we shall not find places."