tionable; while to the merits of the other we take upon us to say that he never, in all his life, paid five minutes' attention. And in this course of mortifying inaction-of inaction in all that was really hoped for, and of tedious wrangling over matters, some of them noxious, others simply stale and unprofitable -Ministers have managed to waste the time of the House very much against the will of the majority on both sides. We really do not know what to liken the condition of the Legislature at this moment, unless it be to the state of Paris when the Commune was there in its glory. Not at any time in point of numbers did the Communists in the French capital amount to one-tenth of the population; yet by sheer audacity they took the lead, and by boldness they kept it. Just so it is in the House of Commons. Mr Gladstone has such a majority at his back as has not supported an English Minister since the days of Pitt; yet he dare not use it, except for party purposes, and these of a kind which recommend themselves exclusively to that small but resolute section of his followers which fills the benches below the gangway. Meanwhile his sympathies out of doors seem to be entirely with persons who make no secret of their determination to revolutionise society. He corresponds with Mr Odger on subjects of Imperial policy, as if the President of the Democratic Club were a power in the State. He is very tender of Mr Martin's feelings when that gentleman demands that Ireland shall be liberated from her connection with England, and professes his readiness to let Ireland herself choose between his views and those of the honourable member for Westmeath. Will he repeat his challenge now? We know not. The recent election of Mr Smythe to be

Mr Martin's colleague under the auspices of the Roman Catholic bishop of the diocese, and on the nomination by a priest, pretty well decides two points-first, that Mr Gladstone has made no advance whatever to conciliate Ireland by his policy; and, next, that great troubles are in store for him and for us in consequence of that policy. There needs but the passing of the Ballot Bill to sweep away whatever of loyalty to the Constitution is still professed in that unhappy country, and to send up to the Imperial Parliament at least a hundred men, pledged to let no measure- -whether it be good or evil-pass, till the legislative Union shall have been dissolved.

Meanwhile there is rising up in our midst a power, of which it is the height of folly to speak as if there were nothing formidable about it-nothing, at all events, which could call for immediate action on the part of the Executive. The Internationale, which six months ago had its headquarters in Paris, has either transferred them, or is about to do so, to London. Its manifestoes indicate no diminution of confidence in the ultimate success of its plans. Into its hands, tradesunions, democratic clubs, working men's associations, and a thousand societies besides, are playing. Nor are there wanting those above the condition of working men who give to it their countenance-sometimes, as it would appear, without being aware of the issues to which they are contributing. A better fellow than Tom Hughes, a more genial, kindly Tom Brown the schoolboy, never breathed. He would not injure a fly; he would benefit the entire race-not human only, but animal-if he could. Yet Tom Hughes is doing more, by his extravagant flattery, to spoil the working man, and throw him into the arms of the Internationale, than he

is aware of. As to Professors Fawcett and Beesley, if they be not already members of that great cosmopolitan club, there can be little doubt that, when the proper time comes, they will be constrained to place themselves at the head of it. Now this, and much more, either is known or ought to be known to the Government, and they take no steps to counteract it. On the contrary, they seem to hold office for no other purpose than so to disturb and confuse men's ideas of what is politically right and politically wrong, that when the crisis comes everything will go by the board, because nobody will rightly understand where he is, or what is expected of him.

It remains to be seen how the Lords will act when the Army Organisation Bill and the Ballot Bill reach them. If the policy attributed to Ministers while we write turns out to be a fact, the Lords will, we trust, dare everything rather than yield to it. To hang up the Army Bill till the Ballot Bill gets through, and then, and not till then, to fling it to the Lords, will be such an outrage as never before was offered to that branch of the Legislature. The Lords must answer it by summarily re

There will

jecting both measures. be the risk of a collision attendant on this course, no doubt. But unless some means can be found of stemming the tide of democracy, such collision must come, sooner or later; and the sooner, perhaps, the better. For our belief is that the country, disgusted and disappointed with the results of the present session, will support the Lords now; whereas, if the Government prevail, especially in the matter of the Ballot, the results may be different. On the whole, then, it appears to us that, great as the perils are by which we are surrounded mischievous as the effects of recent legislation are seen to be-the case of the constitutional monarchy is by no means desperate. The country is not in accord with the acts of the House of Commons; the House of Commons is not at heart with the Government; the Government is at sixes and sevens with itself; Mr Gladstone is totally incapable of ruling men. Let the Lords do their duty, and a reaction may take place which shall give us new leaders, and carry us, under their guidance, in triumph over the many difficulties with which the perverseness of some of its old leaders, and the grievous mistakes of others, had beset the national path,

THE causes which brought about the revolution of the 18th March, and which enabled the Commune to remain master of Paris during sixty-six days, were of two distinct kinds; they were partly moral, partly material. Socialism, stimulated by the teaching of the Internationale, prepared the outbreak; the military organisation and accumulation of arms and stores which resulted from the Prussian siege, supplied means of action, without which that outbreak would probably have failed. The so-called Socialist party, which was composed of various and even hostile elements of the relics of the insurgents of June 1848, of the agitators of 1851 who had returned from exile, of workmen who would not work, and, latterly, of the active agents of the Internationale-began to show its head once more during the later years of the Empire; several of its members, whose names have recently become well known Delescluze, Vermorel, Jules Vallès, Cluseret, and others were then arrested. The moment was not favourable for action, but the movement continued in the dark; and it silently attained a strength and a development which enabled its leaders to seize the first opportunity that offered itself for an insurrection. The Internationale, which dates from the London Universal Exhibition of 1862, did not manifest at its origin the tendencies which it has gradually avowed; and it is only during the last three years that it has actively joined the revolutionary party in Paris. Its first object, copied from the English trades-unions, was, to a certain extent, legitimate and respectable: it

was to prevent needless competition between workmen, to regulate the conditions of strikes, and to generalise their action in Europe, and to seek all practicable and legal means of improving the condition of the labouring classes, especially in their relations towards their employers. But at the meeting held at St Martin's Hall on 28th September 1864, the character of the association received a different definition: its intention of attaining political results was then indicated unmistakably, though with some vagueness; and it was distinctly confirmed at the Lausanne conference in 1866. The French branch of the society was attacked by the Government, for the second time, in 1868, on the charge of illegal meetings. It was on that occasion that France first heard the names of Assi, Varlin, Malon, Johannard, Pindy, Combault, Arrial, Langevin, Theisz, Frankel, and Duval,—all workmen, all members of the Internationale, and all of whom afterwards sat in the Commune of Paris.

By degrees the Internationale, growing in power, in numbers, and in money, ventured to throw off the mask which it had assumed at its origin. It continued to pursue the economical questions which had appeared at first to be its sole end and object; but it began to publicly advocate the suppression of religion, of marriage, and of property, and to show itself in its real character of an institution which intends to revolutionise the world. M. Jules Favre describes it, in his letter of the 6th June 1871, to the French diplomatic agents, to be a "society of war and hatred; its base is athe

ism and Communism; its object, the destruction of capital, and the annihilation of those who possess it; its means of action, the brute force of the majority, which will crush all who resist it." This definition cannot be considered to be exaggerated, for it is in rigorous conformity with the statement published in 1869 by the directing committee of the Internationale in London, which tells us that "the alliance declares itself atheist; it demands the abolition of religion, the substitution of science for faith, of human justice for divine justice, the suppression of marriage." Elsewhere they say, "We call for the direct legislation of the people by the people, the abolition of inheritance, the constitution of land as collective property."

*

These are the principles which, for several years, even before the Internationale intervened, have been secretly but widely circulated in Paris, amongst eager listeners agitated by a vague longing for material satisfactions, by undefined aspirations after an amelioration of their condition. Latterly, these feelings, perfectly honest and natural in themselves, have avowedly taken the form of a wish to possess without earning, to use without acquiring, to enjoy without labouring. A bitter jealousy of every one above them, an unreasoning instinctive hatred of "the rich," an unpardoning animosity against religion because it teaches the uncomplaining acceptance of poverty and trial, were the natural consequences of these disorderly desires; the lust for jouissances became an absorbing passion amongst a considerable part of the lower classes, including also a good many intelligent and relatively welleducated workmen. The chiefs of

the Parisian groups, though they quarrelled amongst themselves, agreed in fostering this diseased state of mind, and led their deluded adherents to believe that the satisfaction of their aspirations would result from the establishment of Communism by force.

So long as the Empire lasted, an explosion was scarcely possible; the Government was strong and absolute, apparently at least; and a rising would have seemed to present small chances of success. But the very day after the proclamation of the Republic of the 4th September, "committees of vigilance were established by the Reds in the faubourgs; public meetings were held, clubs were instituted, sections of the Internationale were founded in all the quarters of Paris, and every night the most violent speeches were made to excited audiences, promising "the triumph of the workmen," "the ruin of the bourgeois," and the suppression of "infamous capital." The word "Commune" made its first real appearance at these meetings.

On the 31st October, when the news of the fall of Metz reached Paris, the leaders of some of the branches of the party imagined that the reaction against the Government which that news provoked would offer them the opportunity for which they were waiting; so, regardless of all other considerations than their own ambition, forgetting that Paris was defending itself against 200,000 Germans, they attacked the Hotel de Ville, crying "Vive la Commune!" Several ministers were arrested by them; but the attempt was premature and incomplete,-the population would not follow, several rival chiefs would not unite; and next day order was restored, the Government

committing the incredible folly of immediately releasing all its prisoners. On the 22d January another similar attempt was made; but though the details differed, the result was the same-the insurrection was once more beaten.

The capitulation of Paris produced an entire change in the temper and even in the composition of the population. An immense number of persons, belonging mainly to the middle and upper classes, went away to join their absent families, or for rest after the siege. Those that remained were humiliated, discontented, and weary: the common bond of national defence which had held them together for five months was suddenly broken; no cohesion, no energy remained. But if the Conservatives were exhausted and indifferent, the Communists were as resolute as ever; and this time they appear to have sunk their animosities, and to have united for their common object.

The elections of the 8th February, when they may be said to have carried two-thirds of the candidates, supplied clear evidence of their unity and strength, and of the weakness and disorder of their opponents. The Government was powerless and discredited; and it is probable that the presence of the Prussians in the forts alone prevented the insurrection from breaking out at once. All remained tolerably quiet until the end of February: there was uncertainty in the air, and much doubt about the future; but those feelings were but natural after a national disaster, and it cannot be said that any one really foresaw or even feared the events which have happened since.

On the afternoon of the 26th February, a party of National Guards of the 183d battalion seized twentyseven cannon in the artillery-park at the Place Wagram, and dragged

them away with their own hands to the Place des Vosges, in the Faubourg St Antoine. That was the first public act of the promoters of the Commune; its real history dates from that day. During the 24th and 25th, manifestations had taken place at the Bastille in honour of the anniversary of the Revolution of 1848: the Guards of the Belleville, Menilmortant, La Chapelle, and Montrouge battalions sent deputations to the column, laid wreaths of immortelles upon its pediment, and tied a red flag (the first that was seen) to the hand of the gilt statue which surmounts it. The movement was, however, supposed to be an overflow of idle rage provoked by the imminence of the entry of the Prussians into Paris, rather than a commencement of revolution. The murder of the sergent de ville who was thrown into the river was attributed to a diseased fury; and during the eight days which intervened between the 26th of February and the 6th of March, the police reports made to the headquarters of General Vinoy, who commanded in Paris, persistently described the rioting as being "patriotic, not political." This view of the matter was confirmed by the march to the Arc de Triomphe, on the night of the 26th, of some 15,000 National Guards, who declared that they would forcibly oppose the entrance of the Prussians, who, fortunately for these volunteers, did not come in till the 1st of March, instead of appearing on the morning of 27th February, as was expected. Any attempt to suppress these acts would certainly have been impolitic in the state of excitement into which the entire population had been thrown by the news that the Germans were really to occupy the Champs Elysées, especially as the whole movement was attributed to a purely antiPrussian feeling. The cannon taken