THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30, 1902. THE FRENCH ELECTIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11953, 30 April 1902, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30, 1902. THE FRENCH ELECTIONS.

Although France is far off, her important Pacific colonies are very near, so that the political doings of that country havo a very direct bearing upon Australasia and deserve more than casual attention. From our British point of view the results of the elections now being concluded are entirely satisfactory, tot although we may in some measure be the gainers by Gallic turmoil and discord, both they and we are mutually advantaged by the maintenance in Paris of a strong and orderly Government. Continental Governments which have their countries well in hand are able to discuss international questions in a more conciliatory and diplomatic spirit than Administrations which shake at the first popular agitation and are driven to retain office by yielding to the passing whims of the day. The Empire has nothing whatever to gam

by the ; precipitation of . possibly; inevitable hostilities with the FrancoRussian Alliance, while France has still so much to lose that any strong Government secured by pronounced public support against spasmodic revolution—may safely be regarded as extremely reluctant to lightly endanger the national prosperity to which 5 it ;v owes its existence. It is indeed an axiom that good government/ makes for international peace, and there can be little doubt that the present Republican coalition provides the best administration at present available to the French people. The very large number of seats won by Government supporters and the manner in which the Nationalists have been generally concentrated into always turbulent Paris is as good tin augury for peace as can be expected from an unfortunately unstable population.

Although France has two houses in her Assembly the present election only affects the Chamber of Deputies. Like our Anglo-Saxon kindred in America, the French people have invented a somewhat cumbrous political fly-wheel to assume the functions so smoothly discharged in our British system by our hereditary monarchy and its constitutional appendages. The French Senate, of three hundred members, is composed of delegates elected by the municipal and departmental authorities, a third being chosen triennially for the nine years senatorial term. The five hundred and eightyfour deputies are elected every four years by universal suffrage, their Chamber having the right to the first presentation of all financial law Each deputy is returned by a single district and a second ballot is resorted to if the first fails to give an absolute majority. Both senators and deputies unite ris a national assembly for the election of a President—who sits for seven years and is not subject to the popular franchise—and both draw an annual salary of £375, which, with the £50,000 paid annually to the President, makes the cost of governance in Republican France much the same as in Monarchical Britain. But although the Chambers are nominally equal, and although an immense amount of administrative authority has been quietly absorbed by the Senate, the fate of French Governments invariably turns upon their standing in the Chamber of Deputies. In spite of his strength in the Senate it was therefore imperative, if he would retain office, that the present Premier, M. Waldeck-Rous-scau, should retain his majority in the second' Chamber.. That he has not only retained it, but largely increased ft, is an indication that he may continue to hold office under President Loubet foi four years more. The difficulty is that one can never venture to prophesy in French politics, not even though the existing Republic has survived the many vicissitudes of over thirty years.

The present/ Republican Administration of France—for in almost all republics there is a " Republican" part.}'—came into office nearly three years ago afier departmental control had for years been transferred from hand to hand with dazzling rapidity. The Republican party as a whole was immensely superior to the Reactionaries, who sought the overthrow of. the Republic, but was so split into clans that no permanent majority seemed possible. Since the formation of the deckRousseau Cabinet, in June, 1699, with the support of the best members of almost all the constitutional parties, the opposition organisation, known as the Nationalist, has sprung into existence. It inclu les everything that is violent, revolutionary and reactionary in France, and seeks to attain its ends by virulent appeals to the worst of Gallic passions. In it are the anti-Semites, who hounded down Dreyfus, the military agitators who made a tool of Kruger, the ungrateful Royalists who insulted a Queen who had sheltered them, and others of that ilk. That they have gained in Paris shows that the Parisians are true to their traditions ; that they have been almost annihilated in the provinces and have not even made a stand in the great provincial cities may be a hopeful sign that the industrious country folk who rebuilt France from the downfall of '70-'7l are determined not to be ruined again by scheming and worthless adventurers.