OUR PARIS LETTER. [FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) Paris, December 12.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2116, 30 January 1886, Page 4

OUR PARIS LETTER. [FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) Paris, December 12.

M. Yaimam hai bioaehed a panacea bufoic the Municipal Council that cosmopolitan politicians ought to icad, Aiark, lcain, and inwardly digest. It fiuipas-.es tin: fowl in the Bunday pot of Ilumi IV, t'liu tlircc ncic<anda cow, or a farm or a house lent free, it is simply to pay the working man a Jiighur salary and reduce his hours ot labour— then he will love the Republic. The but ought to induce hewers of wood and drawers of water to bless the regime which soeured them such soiiilj&m, wero it even under the C/ar or the ex Thebaw, The remedy would only increase tbo taxation of the country fifty pci #oufc— a ineie bagitelle for conveitmg France into an Agapcnione. That might he the realization of General Foys democracy ; the league of all those who wish to live without work ; to consume without producing; to receive an ap pointnicnt iriospectivo of competence, and to piou'dufor individual-, unuoilhy of protection. M. Vaillant depicts the hauUhip of one class of prolctain.s, the stone masons. A mcirber of this gui'd a.6prcsent has to work ten hours a day, and for siibh toil nuuhcs l>ut 7fi. It h pioposcd to reduce his working time to eight hom-H simidtaneously, with an augmentation of wages to lOfr. The latter ia the pay of a Fiench army bin peon, and the salary of a F:ench bishop Just think of the privations the stone n»ar.on has to diurually undergo. ll.il f hiseainingd are expended on his stomach In the morning he has to " kill the .worm " with a nip of cognac or anisette at ,9 o'clock, his meals comprises soup, beef, ml vegetables, wine, white bread, chccc and coffee ; at two o'clock cT, quart of beer, cheese and bread ; at six o'clock soup, bread, and beef, with some kickshaws in the way of diiuk and dessert. All this sums up to 3fr. a day for meals. Toor follow, he ought to be pitied, or transformed into a government clerk, or a national schoolmaster, to experience a few of the sweet uses of adveristy.

Tonquin is a veritable Pandoras box : a Upas tree for France. All is nasty anil reckless, hi the evidence given before the Parliamentary Commission. National vanity ami pride, still dominate over prudence and common sense. That venture must be retained, according to some medicine men, because the glory of France so demands. Others scout all this costly sentiment, point out the folly and the danger of persisting in the error of camping in Tonkin, which is merely an issue in the flank of the Mother Country, and that can never bring in grist to the mill. Albo, the moment the country may be calmed, the English, Germans, and Chinese, will monopolize any business that may exist, as they already do in Cochin China, and other French colonies.

The Parliamentary intrigues on foot appear to be limited to finding a scapegoat for the break down of Jules Ferry's Colonial Expansion Policy. The goat in this case is Colonel Hcrbinger. By his disastrous bolting before Langson, due, it is alleged, to his habits of intoxication, Tonquin has turned out a blank. The colonel's accusers forget, he has been oificially acquitted of all blame, and to ru-open charges, when he is not present, as yet, to defend himself, is not chivalrous, even when the age of chivalry is said to have exjmed, with the scaffold death of Marie . Antoinette. There is rebutting evidence that Hcrbinger is not a toper, nor was he " the woise for liquor " on the day of the skedaddle before Langson. The truth is leaking out; the French retreat had actually commenced before General NegriiT had been forced to hand his command over to Herbingcr, and that Ncgrier had uot the material of war to hold out against the locu3t, hosts of the heathen Chinee swarming him in. All then at Tonkin seems "to be the fault of the colonel. "' Napoleon lost a battle in consequence of dining off a badly cooked shoulder of mutton. Henri IV. won Iviy, owing to tho French Maibhall rein lining too long at table. 13ut if Tonkin was a land flowing with milk and honey, two ycais bifoio lleibingu- took up the command of a column in full retreat and led it to shelter, his blunder does not obliteiate all the alleged gold mines, coal Holds, commercial outlets, &c. Politician-) cic now have been luld ics>pousihlc for fjlliug butcher's shops with largo blue flies; but it is rather too much to attn bn to to tho colonel the breakdown of Ton 'kin, the raids of the Black Flags, the famine at Hoang-Hoa, the cholera at JtanoT, and the massacre of tho Christians .round line. The remedy proposed is— persistence in the occupation, in tho guarding of the White Elephant. To evacuate would cos>fc niilhous ami the los*. of prestige, besides leading to complications with China for creating chaos in her vassal dependency. Franco wants the courage to bo hcroic.il and emancipate herself from a blunder, she fears tho world would laugh at her. The woiM will have more causo for laughter at her remaining and squandering men and tr-illioub in a ftiilmo. It is sad to to icad over the names of men to whom M. Kcny pave a. monopoly of the con- , cessions for farming Tonquin. But then the mother idea of the invasion of Touqnin was that no leaistance was to be encountered, and which Jules Ferry embodied in his famous phrase, the occupation was only "a military promenade." JAlso, Tonquin was only the steppingstone to the absorption of old China, on the lines of the acquisition of Biitish India— hence, day dream ot Ferry's, -for whom China was only a " neytigcabk .quantite. All has collapsed, while the taking of Upper Uurmah by the Engsish r is tho keenest of criticisms on the Touquin expedition, and severest of comparisons, of how uot to do it." Further, France is pricked to the marrow that John Bull, whose decadence was the daily theme for a family of journals, now secures the Western trade route, fiee to all nations, to Chiua, through Siam and the rich Shan states, while the Tonquin water-way and Its handicaps for allfthat would not be French, remain in the region of poetry — • innubibus. Undiminished sympathy contintips to be extended to Bulgaria, and the best wishes expressed, that she may be saved from the bruin hugs of Russia, and the ,twelfth hour interest of Turkey. Come weel, come woe, it is felt tho Bulgarians cannot be separated ; they have not been so much united as welded at Slivnitza. As for Scrvia there is only one regret : -she has escaped the chastisement she so richly merits by skulking behind Austria, the power that egged - her on. Quiet observers note the progress of Austria and Russia towards their their settling day, the Czar protests the puiity of his love for Francis-Joseph, and the latter gives back sigh for sigh. He protests too much, it runs iv the Romanoff family like wooden legs, ask British India about Muscovite protests of amity and disinterestedness. Russia commences as usual, the Czar advocates peace, while he winks the Slavlibciation and philanthropic committees, headed by the arch-intriguer Ignatieff. clamoring for Bulgarian brotheihood. All this is the historical icver dc rtdcau.

Very little attention is given to the advance of the lieutenants of the Alc.\:in-dcr-Madhi, down the Nile. The French have made tip their minds, that the English are as "headstrong as an allegoi y on the banks of the Nile, 1 ' and will keep their word, to remain till it pleases them to go. It is not bad in the interests of unfettered commerce to have Egypt dinder English tutelage, at the present moment, when the eagles arc likely plotting 1 how the sick man ran best be made to perform the miracle, take up his bed and walk, out of Eprope. People here make no secret, that Bismarck deshes to crown his career, by definitely freeing the world from that Jack-in-the-Box danger, the Eastern question.

The political world is all absorbed by the Ton jtiiti imbroglio, which is a most sci io'is matter for France, as it involves tbf whole scheme of her colonial policy, w ttli \\ Inch aie lioiuhl up the state of her tin ititcs and the re-orgnni.>ation of ber mihtiry poucis. Hnppily a fiercer light ln-'its oil these subjects, and the resolution i» in the air to <>o to the bottom to discover the causes which keep France in a si ate ot itnlitical stagnation, and her linanees a ltcmUt mystery than the North Pole, or the Freemasonry secicts of the thifc Kaiser?. There is the usual fox and geese game going on of constructing new Cabinet-, but which turn out to be only patched up editions of their predcws«ors. The unpleasant fact to record i-> that the desired union between all shades of republicanism is as remote as the millennium.

Decency forliirlsthat Spain should commence to tear her.self to pcices until the poor King bo finally scaled up in his block of mai bio. The Republicans arc expected to open the ball. The Carlists want money, and cannot count on Prance to give them a frontier help as when M« Malion w.xt cock a-doodlc-doo. The toy.il funeral will he very magnificent, ami the service will he celebrated in the now San Frandsco Chapel— the Pantheon in .1 word— and which his Majesty is the (ii&t to inaugurate. His pet daughter, the I'liuccsa Mercedes, named after his first wif<\ after the desire of his second, has not been informed yet of her papa's death. She believes him to bo still at the Pamlo. A few days ago she obtained a ro-e, plucked off the leaves, and kissing them, asked a valet to give them to her papa, and " Leg him to come and see her, as he did not kiss her since fifteen days."

We arc playing itsocmsatlBS7 Exhibition. Now and then a circular is sent out, about something to remind all whom it may concern, that the idea is not dead, but sleeping, and dusted in a piceon-hole. Its holding nice, depends on the fc«'liug of the nation after it is duly informed of the state of the budget. It would not be correct to say the idea is popular ; were businers prospects to brighten, perhaps a more favourable feeling would .°et in. There is a company ready to take charge of the project and seiiously finance it, but the Government dislikes games of speculation, and the bazaar could never succeed, unless it was official.

S mlon's comedy in four act 1 !, Georgette, is devoted to explain " what becomes of the old staisof the demi-monde?" The rich satirist has been fifteen years trying to square this circle. Outside France the public takes but little interest in the state of mind of wealthy and retired courtisans. We have instances where they endowed a college or a cat. One went in for patronising ro»\ire<, which, like rosemary, was, perhap3, for remembrance. Sardon compounds wells his perfect cure, for nsed-up fashionable vice. He makes the illegitimate daughter of Georgette so good as to be fit for a tract. The mother smuggles her child into a fashionable school to be educated, and grasping the skirts of happy chauce her daughter is admired by a visiting brother of one of her schoolmates, who insists on marrying her, despite the revelations of her genealogical tree ; he prefers the usual amount of sentiment and humanity about visiting the sins of the— mothers on the children. All this is very prettily brought out on the stage, but in real life we do not adopt Sardon's morality ; we leave it for some other fellow to do. Pity Sardon and Dumas//* were married befoie they became celebrated as dramatic physirians in ordinary, to the adulterous and illgitimatcs of society. They could make the- Curthis sacrifice themselves. Now a hangman, is not an out-cast like his subjects ; and yet how many philanthropists would set the example, by marrying into cither family ? Georgette is a self-made duchess, Carlington, in the world where on Samuce, yet her innocent daughter, succeeds in becoming a real live countess. No democrat would reason himselt into such a mesalliance ; but he would avow, he was glad to see the aristo's could be turned, at last, to account. The piece U well represented, especially in the miuor roles ; the scenery has loss bric-a-brac ; Sardon depends moic on pity on the present occasion, than on upholstery. If it does not make converts, it will make money ; and it can console the Coral Pearls and other Cupidous, that a brilliant future awaits their daughters. "So Madame, you have secured a position for your son, with a banker ; but take enre, such men are apt to fly away;" "Oh 1 have thought of that," replied the mother, " the banker has pro-mi-cd, in case he emigrates suddenly, to take my son with him." Courtesy between two rag-pickers : TJcfoic a heap of kitchen refuse, one of them is in the act of hooking up a fat cabbage stump : "Pardon," said his confieie, laising his three storied silk cap, "permit me to hook it: my wife has some friends, you kum to supper tonight.'' _____^ __