OUR PARIS LETTER.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2531, 29 September 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)

OUR PARIS LETTER.

[PROM OCR OWN CORRESPONDENT. 1 Paris, August 14. The most remarkable circumstance about the funeral of the Communist Eude* was, that the labourers uow on strike, were expected to improve the occasion to start a revolution, when instead, they formed themselves into special constables and aided the police to maintain order. The Government cannot be too highly congratulated on its stern decision to repress all attempts .it disorder, with severity, and to prove its earnestness, there was a most salutary mustering of foot and mounted police, with the military ready at a signal, to march out of the barracks. The crowd decided to tantalize, since it quickly comprehended it could not resist the authorities. The row was something between a Hyde Park demonstration and a sharp Trafalgar Square row. A liberal supply of sticking plaster will imke the pommelled and battered on both sides soon aa well as ever. Insurance societies' hare not to lament the loss of any clients. Radicalism was on its trial in this big funeral march to the grave; had Premier Floqnet hesitated to strike strong and swiftly ; to treat the anarchists " rough as nutmeg graters," the serious classes in Fraucc would have sharply called him to account. As it is, tho anarchists denounce him as worse than his nephew, Jules Ferry. Rochefort doee not like monster funerals ; they cause him fainting sensations, whenever he takes part in them. At Budes' funeral, ho had an open carriage, so plenty of air. It was not a bad arrangement to have Louise Michel beside him, aud the deceased's two little daughters in front of him. But then ho paid tho expenses of the interment, and it is his purso supplies the modest wants of the Jeanno d' Aic of the Commune, or the " Red Virgin" as Louise prefers to be called. Legality having been upheld in the streets, the authorities did well to allow tho anarchists to display their red and bUek flags inside the Pore Lachaise cenutry, and to orate for several hours over the public receiving vault and its new tenant. Then all was over. The day was fiery hot, that which seems to be us prejudicial for getting up a " Day," Hβ a Monsoon downpour. The loffrin section of the oommuuists did not put in an appearance; their presence might havo been more provocative than that of tho police, as they have recently gone over to the Clemenceao coalition of omnium gatherums, and po nro ranked as bloated bourgeois. Endee. who claims descent, Irom tho early Knprs of P.iris of that name, was a Normandy npotheoary. Ho threw up the pestle mid mortar, to pound and compound under the Commune. GouenilTrochu had a plan to save Paris. General Eudes had i ne 10 burn it down, and strange, both Generals failed. Eudes escape! to Switzerland, preferring to be a refugee, rather thun to be a martyr, and shot by court-martial. The Amnesty permitted him nnd his band of brothers to re-enter France. Ho set up an a swayer, but never became a top one, as ho resigned, that for hebdomadal orations on the blo.'sines of annrchy, and recently started a wild sheet, with the Blanqui figure head of " neither G'ml nor Master." Blanqui's mantle full on Kudus. He is ono dangerous man leu--. Extreme as ho was in his viuws.'it is not beliei-ud that ho took cash and dynamita from Schroeder and Haupt, the Berlin police agents, to perpetrate crimes. Let those who dread the premature end of the world take heart of graeo. There is ample time left for tho wicked to repent, and for the virtuous to practise good works. M. Adolpbe Astiiir describes the deathbed of our poor planet. Tho sun will first become extinct, then the earth will tumble on, and fall iuto it. A eilenoe of death will reign between the two globes ; the one revolving round the other in icy coldness, till our planet be dashed to pieces and converted into meteorites.* He estimates tho age of the world at sixteen millions of years ; but what is more important, because personnlly interesting, it has still a good one hundred millions of years yet to run. By then, the Eastern question may be settled ; the English will have evacuated Egypt, and the fate of Stanley, and who's the White Pasha, known. The pulsations of tho Labourer's strike are not so alarming; the resolution of the Government not to permit the strikers to intimidate those willing to work, has borne excellent fruit. Then it was prudent to temporarily close the Labor Exchange or Mart, which had simply become a centre of proselytism for the strikers. The wholo misunderstanding aud suffering is the consequence of the Municipal Council interfering to regulate the hours of work, and fixing a uniform rate per hour of remuneration. The Ministerial "intention" to copy the State socialism of Bismarck, by aaking society provide for the working classes when struck down by sickness, accident, or old age, does not charm anyone ; the interested give it no attention, while the tax-payer does. Why should one class of workers be nursed aud coddled by the Stato, aud others left to rely on their own frugality. Why are shop assistants, clerks, deputies, diplomatists, aye and even journalists, not to count upon the life-epocha of free spoon-feeding f Qwe

I us all a sharo in that " collectivity," and thus provo that man commences—and finishes very often—by the child. No tangible proof has yet appeared of any output irom tbo Mc-a-lclc balwyen the young Kaiser and the wide-awake . Czar. No one expects Bismarck to avow that his pupil hue failed in his mis.-ion. The attitude of Italy towards Prance is a more reliable index of the pituation than Imperial flying visits. Bulgaria creates no serious uneasiness; that country may change its princes as it pleases, but so long as Turkey and Russia do not march into the bowels of the land, neighbouring armies need not bo served out. ball cartridge, ho long? as Rouniiinia is hostile to Rrssian troops traversing hi'r territory, tins Muscovite cannot risk an Austrian advance to back the Balkan powers. Much attention is given to tlic quiet, but effoolivo armaments of England and her colonies, and a large addition to hoc navy is expected. Without examining tbo motive, pleasure is expressed that tho English Cabinet is resolved not to bo towed any longer in her foreign , policy by Borlin, and that she will depend more on herself than on an interested Chancellor, though it bo snid the friendship of a gr;at man is a gift of the gods. The fr'ouila of the peace on earth policy are drawing attention to the Federative Pact of Henry IV., and that his assassination in May IGIO, prevented him from carrying it out by force. A solution not unlike that of the German doctors, who wanted to save Frederick 111., by killing him. Henri and Sully proposed, that the sixteen states then composing Europe, should federate, and pledge themselves to have for mission, to maintain existing religious liberties, and to decide all international conflicts. Tnc States of the Church and England, were the first to subscribe to the Pact. Turkey and Russia were excluded, being deemed Asiatic powers. Austria being recalcitrant, Henri undertook to fight hor into the union of pe-iiw The Pact was to be composed of 32 representatives, two from each state, and their decisions wero without appeal. Although the idea failed it was taken up by individual philanthropists, the earliest in the field being George Pox and William Penn. Tho ball was kopt rolling by Fenelon,.in his " Teleraachus ;" and by the Alibij do St. Purie, in his " Perpetual Peace ;" and then came Voltaire, Leibnitz, Kant, Bentham, Fourier and St. Simon, as well as the poets who chantod the text. The Congress of Berlin of ISSG paid platonic homage to the principlo of agreeing that no conflict was ti bo henoeforth undertaken, without having recourse to preliminary meditations, In practice the latter are limited to not how to avoid, but how to commence hostilities. Utopian us was the project, it had been several times acted upon, and most notably in the cases of Uie Alabama and the Caroline Islands. War still exists, and yet there are plenty of peace societies. France has seven, Italy two, Austria, Denmark, Holland Norway and Sweden onn each, Germany bus four, England seven, and the United St itns 42. Neither Russia nor Spain have a peace society. General Bonlanger is once more 01 tha p-iliticiil warpath. He intoads to contrast the departments of the Lower Charentc airl tbo Somin?. Ho uo lingcc seiiou-ly counts in tho polilic.il situuion, but he can still mako a noise. The French have been so oratorioally andnewspaperly laibcd, lashed on every form of politics, tlint liko the jaded horse, additional whipping produces no effect. The nation apparently wants to be let alone. The peoplo have had enough of csnstitutions, original and revised, and in point of results all have proved to be very much alike. To make more money, that is what tho nation demands. Not ono half of the people now enjoy an outing at tho seasido who formerly never misssd a soa«on. In tho suburbs it is painful to note the number of villa residences to bo let, or sold, tlie latter preferred. Tho ox Pure Loysnn's time is not wholly engrossed in converting Franco to his new Church. He now proposes the formation of a "Peasant's Republic," to cut out Biulangism. France suffers from a. plethora of political medicine men. It is not unlikely that the now cavalry regiments France is to form wi11... be largely composed of lancers. A Paris journal publishes in a stop ureas edition a telegram from its London correspondent, that the " EmrlUh navv baa bombardel Scotland." What atrocity ! They are landsmen who man tho Rus-inn ami Genn-.iu navies. Both countries intend to "train the conscripts to s-ea-Moknes-." , ■