the same time he did not hold them for brigands who peopled the Louvre with treasures. Thus, from the indiscretion of M. Maurras, let us ourselves take warning. Do not let us judge France from her noisy politicians or from the Communists, who are a constant danger to Paris and other large towns. MM. Herriot and Caillaux no more nearly represent France than Messrs Lloyd George and Smillie (let us say) represent England. Behind and beyond the Chamber of Deputies lies the France of industry and art. The patient hard-working farmers, who, proud of their holdings, think no toil excessive that shall effectively till the soil, are better Frenchmen than those foolish ones who prate about the "true Republic." They Some politics of the hour. And more than this, a love of the arts seems instinctive in the French. For many a century they have in painting, in sculpture, in letters, been as a guide unto Europe. They have toiled at their crafts without any thought of gain. They have sought the line or the word that they want in singleness of heart. Go into any literary coterie you will in Paris, and you will find the young writers intent upon the discussion of style and design; you will hear no idle chatter about royalties and profits and suchlike irrelevancies. So long as France remains true to these ideals, she need not despair of happiness and prosperity. Man does not live by bread alone, and the demagogues, though they may do much harm by juggling with the price of bread, cannot chain the free untrammelled spirit of the arts. know well enough that politics do but touch the fringe of life, and they are content to take the advice of Voltaire and That the arts would flourish cultivate their garden. more abundantly if a king sat years since a travelling English- upon the throne of France man asked a peasant in Pro- will be denied by no wise man. vence, who was tending his A stable continuity of life is little vineyard, what he thought the best encouragement of the of an eight hours day. "Thank arts. It is also the best enGod," said the peasant, "my couragement of sound governland is my own, and I can work ment. And sound government eighteen hours a day if I like." is precisely what France, under You will never hear such a reply the Republic, has not enjoyed. from the lips of an English- Here M. Maurras' indictment man, and for that very reason is unassailable. Since 1919 the policy of small holdings France has had five Prime will always fail in this country Ministers, and in a few months of ours. But to France small she will have a sixth. How is holdings bring both wealth and it possible that she should security, and so long as they confront foreign nations with flourish they will prove an any confidence when her own admirable corrective to the fate hangs thus uncertainly in the balance? Every Prime to control the treasury of the Minister as he comes along has Republic passes belief, and is his own panacea. Inevitably in itself the heaviest indictfrom month to month the ment of democracy. policy of the changing government must change, and all the impetus which comes of solidarity must be lost. Surely the monarch who has been brought up to his trade, who has learnt in the school of experience how the country shall be saved, who, being in close relations with all the monarchies and aristocracies of the globe, has far better chances than presidents or ministers to realise the project of peace, is a better, wiser head of the State than a president who will not defend his position, or a Prime Minister who is omnipotent to-day and forgotten to-morrow. And M. Caillaux, whom rumour has selected for M. Herriot's immediate successor, how shall he sustain the burden of France ? The mere fact that he has been fêted in Paris proves how short a memory have the electors. Just before the war his conduct was examined by a Parliamentary Committee, and the account which M. Barrès wrote of this inquiry was called appriately "Dans le Cloâque." To-day M. Caillaux has emerged from the sewer. He has, it seems, lived down his association with the infamous M. Bolo and the sentence of the High Court. He is free, we are told, to take in hand the government of France, and to restore her shattered finances. That he, the dupe of Bolo, should be permitted, even in suggestion, Indeed, it is the creed of the democracy that a demagogue can do no wrong, and France by passing an Amnesty Bill has given practical expression to this dangerous creed. Nor should England misunderstand the consequence of setting up M. Caillaux, the friend of Bolo, upon a throne of heroism. Now, M. Caillaux has ever been the bitter enemy of this country. Should he ever feel himself strong enough in France, which is happily doubtful, he will make an alliance with Germany, and do his best to exclude England from the councils and the trade of the Continent. Meanwhile, his sudden recovery is proof of the fickleness of democracy. Not long since he was generally regarded as a traitor to his country. When he came to Paris to attend the obsequies of Anatole France, he was hemmed in on all sides by protecting police, and then, after a brief interval, he was received as a victorious general might have been received, and was carried on the shoulders of suddenly converted admirers to his triumphing motor-car. After the fickleness of democracies, which has its manifest advantage, since it prevents the worst demagogue from doing a vast deal of harm, its conspicuous characteristic is irrelevance. With Europe still in chaos, the English democracy, for instance, is eager to increase the vast mob of voters, who are already a danger to the State. Having added some ten millions to the electoral roll, it looks round anxiously for more millions whom it might compel to come in. Dema gogues there are to whom an extended franchise is a guarantee of wisdom and glory. They are as eager to increase the number of voters as the morphia maniac is to double the dose which carries him into dreamland. They must satisfy their growing appetite at all costs. They profess a firm faith that the State is strengthened by a multiplicity of voters. As the suffrage is bestowed upon each new class, they proclaim that they have passed another milestone on the road of progress. And they cling to the belief that each new class will be separately represented in the House of Commons, if only they go faithfully to the polling-booth. There never was a more monstrous fallacy. Nobody is represented in the House of Commons save the odd man. Three or five electors, or, indeed, any odd number, would do the work of millions. By a supremely happy accident, we have to-day a Government which devoutly believes in the fatherland and in the Empire. But its presence in Westminster is due not to the influence of those intelligent classes who wish to guard the great inheritance which has come down to them, but to the fear of the foreign domination threatened by the Socialists. But no protection is afforded to any minority; no special class can boast its champion; and the five million young women whom it is proposed to admit to the franchise can do no more than add to the fierce and dangerous gamble of politics. Why it should be taken for granted that the five million unenfranchised women between the ages of twenty-one and thirty have a right to interfere in the business of the State we do not know. Will their exercise of the franchise help them or help the State? The sole argument adduced is that there should be a completely equal treatment of the sexes. Even if that were true, two wrongs do not make a right, and if the susceptibilities of women are outraged, it would be wiser and easier to take away the vote from men of the same age than to add another five million to the electoral roll. And if the larger franchise be achieved, what will the demagogues do to satisfy their future craving for what has been called "reform in grim irony? They will have no resource but to declare that at fifteen every girl and boy is fit to exercise the franchise. And why should they stop at fifteen? Children in arms may have no language but a cry, but the cry is loud and persistent. Then the democrat may sing aloud his nunc dimittis, and boast that at last he has reached in safety the ultimate goal of progress. Printed in Great Britain by WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS. UNCLE BLISS was an hour in her knitting, did not answer late. Naturally it was an hour at first. "Four light, three of conjecture. None of us had dark, two light.-Tame, did ever seen him except Angela, you say? No, I certainly and Angela was not very good should not call him tame. at answering questions. She That does not at all describe could be extremely vivid, him." though, when she was not being catechised. "Out-of-door and hairy! Irene repeated. "Mummy, how exciting! Is he like an animal? "No, dear. Not in the least." "Is he tame?" Val asked. "I mean, is he like a tame animal? At this Irene danced with excitement. "Mummy! How lovely! A wild animal ! Is he like a bear? "I told you, dear, he is not like an animal. You mustn't be so quick at jumping to conclusions, and you must remember to be very polite to Uncle Bliss and not to stare at him." This, of course, only confirmed Irene's belief in Uncle Bliss' resemblance to an animal. Anyhow," she concluded, "if he is not like an animal, he doesn't sound like a real person who lives anywhere." Val here confided to Irene Angela, who was absorbed in an undertone that he had of looking at people and considering things, a new way of hanging a hat on a peg. The simplest problem in individuality is as mysterious as the higher mathematics. heard Mummy tell Daddy that head and shoulders, a new way Uncle Bliss was rolling. "I expect that he walks like the bear at the Zoo," he added. Irene in her superior wisdom enlightened him. "Rolling means rich," she said. "RollsRoyce and all that. Mummy said he would come in a RollsRoyce." "But who is he like?" Irene persisted. "He must be like somebody." Angela looked at her, and seemed to be searching her memory. "No," she said, "I don't think he is like anybody." I had been rather bored with the idea of entertaining Uncle Bliss all the afternoon, but I was beginning to be infected by the children's curiosity. Irene was right. When you come to think of it, everybody is interesting until you know them. In five minutes there would be a new person in the room, different from anybody I had seen before. An empty place at a table in a hotel or restaurant raises a profoundly interesting problem if one has a curious mind. Presently some one will come in and sit down at it. A new face. If after the millions of faces one has seen it is possible to conjure one more variety out of the same old recipe-a round or oval cranium with six apertures in it, seven if one counts the nostrils as two. And the face is only the beginning of the enigma. There will be a new voice allied with it, a new manner, new movements of the I had often heard of Uncle Bliss, but I had never tried to picture him before. Not consciously. Now I had a vision of the stage AngloIndian Colonel in the empty chair with a sola topi on his knee. I suppose because I had heard that he had travelled a great deal in tropical countries and collected thingsrather indiscriminately, so far as I could gather. One or two of his white elephants had come to us at Homersfield. Uncle Bliss, by the way, was nobody's uncle, not even a relation. Our only claim to kinship was that he that he happened to be Irene's godfather; even how that came about I had forgotten. "I have only seen him twice," Angela continued, " and he was different each time." Now if she remembered that he was different, she must remember what he was like-in one of these encounters, if not in both. I knew Angela could give us more details if she chose. But she was like that. It was a kind of obstinacy. When challenged, her mind became too indolent for precision. Still "different each time was a clue. Uncle Bliss was a man of moods as well as being "an out-of-door sort of person and "hairy." |