Commission of Inquiry sent its delegates to report on, will not be remedied by grants of money or the giving of employment on public works. If Lyons cannot compete with Crefeld in cheapness, it must change its industry. Germany is pressing us hard, moreover, in several of the cheaper textile industries, in furniture-making, and even in those gimcracks which are commonly known as "articles de Paris."

To these special causes, which chiefly affect manufacture, we must add the more general causes which affect, first, agriculture—our principal source of wealth-and then commerce. These may be summed up under two heads-the excess of production all over the world, and speculation, whether in commerce or on the Bourse. All the theories of the early part of this century on the relation between production and population have been disproved. It was held that population must increase far more rapidly than the products of the soil; it is found, on the contrary, that all the world is suffering from the excessive production of corn, of coffee, of wool, of cotton. The French agriculturist spends seventeen francs to produce a hectolitre of corn, and then has to sell it at fourteen francs on account of American competition. Coffee, notwithstanding the enormous duty upon it, is cheaper than it was fifteen years ago. The wools of La Plata are fast making it useless for us to breed sheep for wool. A nation like ours, whose population increases very little or not at all, is in a peculiarly unfavourable position, because the scarcity of workmen is always raising the price of labour, while the price of necessaries cannot rise because the number of consumers does not increase. The native producer therefore sells at a loss, and the market is flooded with foreign produce. Commerce meanwhile has been almost destroyed, partly as a consequence of this depreciation of raw material, partly on account of the equalization of prices all over the world which has been brought about by the telegraph. While the number of traders was always increasing, the dealers were no longer able to obtain a remunerative price, and threw themselves into the wildest speculation. This only precipitated the fall of prices, and involved the import trade in the general ruin; while the prospect of rapid and easy gains diverted capital from industrial or commercial enterprise to speculations on the Bourse. This is the state of things which obtains at present over the whole civilized world, but which presses with peculiar weight on France.

How are these evils to be met? The tendency in Governmental and Parliamentary circles is to seek the remedy in a general raising of tariffs, in fresh taxes on foreign wheat, foreign cattle, foreign sugar, foreign merchandise. M. Méline, the Minister of Agriculture-himself a manufacturer of the Vosges-has made himself the apostle of this system. Certain it is that in matters of this kind it does not do to be slaves of an idea-that it may be necessary to resort to protective duties in order to save a national industry; but it is, on the other hand, no less certain that over-protection tends to encourage a sleepy routinism, to do away with exports and imports together, and to maintain an excessive price of commodities, from which the consumers, who are the mass of the nation, are the immediate sufferers. The only lasting remedy would be found in a fresh impetus given to the

national activities, in a more rapid increase of the population, in simpler manners, a habit of contentment with, smaller gains, a lower standard of luxury, and, finally, in the creation of new openings for commerce. This increase of activity can hardly be brought about without something of a free trade policy. For this reason, those who had watched with regret the growth of the protectionist movement rejoiced to see M. Hérisson replaced in the Ministry of Commerce by M. Rouvier. M. Hérisson had been offered a place in the Cabinet, for purely political reasons, as a representative of the Radical Left. He was a good fellow, indolent but amiable, and profoundly ignorant of all that belonged to his department. M. Rouvier is an energetic and experienced man, thoroughly conversant with commercial questions, and he has already given proof of real ability. It is even regarded as probable that he may before long be called to succeed M. Tirard as Minister of Finance-a charge which seems somewhat too heavy for M. Tirard's shoulders.

It may be that, some future day, our colonial policy may provide a substantial remedy for all these evils; but for the present it does but aggravate the case by increasing the expenditure of the country. It does more it complicates the whole situation at home and abroad by the attitude it obliges us to assume with regard to Germany.

I said a year ago, in this very Review, that the policy pursued by England in her relations with us was assuredly destined to bring about a rapprochement between us and Germany. I even added that, if we were not in the nineteenth century-a century in which the tide of national feeling has risen high enough to secure the prevalence of a policy of sentiment over a policy of interest-a Franco-German alliance would already have been made. These predictions have been realized. Germany went with France step by step throughout the London Conference; she supported and encouraged her in her Chinese campaign; she showed no vexation at the stupid insult offered the 14th July by a parcel of gamins to the German flag; and lastly, it is on the strength of a preliminary understanding with France that Prince Bismarck has issued the invitations to a Conference at Berlin which is to settle the international questions raised by the European settlements on the Congo, and to lay down the principles to be observed by civilized states in taking possession of fresh territory among barbarous tribes. Of course all the enemies of the Government take occasion to cry out against the treachery of M. Ferry; and even the Intransigents, who are daily averring that patriotism is an absurdity, and that what we want is a universal republic, veil their faces in speaking of the German alliance. The league of patriots, led by men of more heart than head, M. Anatole de la Forge and M. Déroulède-a league which has done good service by encouraging associations for gymnastics and rifle-shooting, and getting up a great annual national shooting match, but which from time to time has caused the Government no little inconvenience by its untimely manifestations-has had the imprudence and the bad taste to protest noisily against a German alliance which exists only in imagination. As a matter of fact, our position in this respect is the simplest thing in the world. France and Germany have discovered that at certain points their interests are identical. Prince Bismarck finds his own advantage in offering

his good offices to to France. Why should she refuse them? We cannot now regain Alsace and Lorraine by force. Are we therefore to renounce every kind of political activity? Why should the fact of our having friendly relations with Germany at present hinder our taking any opportunity which may present itself in the future to revive claims which nothing can make us forget? If indeed our rapprochement with Germany were to lose us some useful alliances elsewhere, the objection might be understood; but France is in a position in which no alliance is possible to her; and the only thing she can do is to turn to her own interests the interests of others. We cannot make an ally of England, first, because she is not a military power, and secondly, because, as an insular nation living exclusively by her commerce and her colonies, she would be committing suicide if she linked her fortunes with those of any Continental Power. We must desire, we must seek to maintain, the friendship of England; but to reckon on her support would be mere folly. Spain goes for nothing in European political calculations; Italy plays a larger part in them; but there the position of France on the Mediterranean has created jealousies which it will take long to appease. Austria cannot ally herself with France against Germany and Italy. She would have nothing to gain on the one hand, while on the other she would risk the Trentin and Istria. As to Germany herself, she may incidentally give her support to France, but she has no interest in making a formal alliance with us, which she could only do by renouncing, in part at least, the conquests of 1870; and the union of the various German States would become comparatively insecure from the moment they were no longer held together by the fear of France. The only alliance possible to France is a Slav alliance, for with the Slavs alone she has some interests in common and no causes of dispute. This alliance will probably some day come to pass, unless Germany takes great pains to prevent it, or unless France is completely annihilated; but as yet the time is not come. France and Russia are not strong enough to cope with Germany, Austria, and Italy together; and besides, autocratic Russia has little sympathy with republican France, and clings as yet to the Prussian alliance, as the interview at Skierniewice clearly showed. The abuse launched at M. Ferry on the subject of a German alliance is absurd, not only because M. Ferry is quite as jealous of the honour of France as either M. Rochefort or M. Déroulède, but because a German or any other alliance is at present impossible. But M. Ferry has responsibilities which these gentlemen do not share; and he would be but a poor patriot if he did not try to keep things quiet on the Continent while France is busy in the East, and to obtain some friendly support against the ill-will excited by her colonial policy. M. Ferry's task is no light one. The necessity of holding his majority together in a Chamber which depends on the electoral committees of the departments restrains him from a broad and vigorous policy, fetters him by a thousand petty considerations, wastes his time in lobby intrigues, and subjects him to the influence of men who are, as often as not, selfish and incapable. He dare not and cannot, either in foreign affairs or in finance, sketch out his programme and proceed to carry it through, without being hampered by the interference of committees of the House; he is fain

to do things by halves, and almost by stealth, and even then he is always at the mercy of some accident of debate, some caprice of the majority. For the majority is guided neither by sound political views of its own nor by any reasonable confidence in the wisdom of M. Ferry. It has supported him so far because it sees in him the Great Elector whom it is its interest to follow. If it should appear that re-election was more likely to be ensured by deserting him, it would desert to-morrow. For the moment M. Ferry is strong enough, but only within these limits. The Ministry is at the mercy of the Chamber, and the Chamber is at the mercy of the Electoral Committees. We are tending more and more to direct government by universal suffrage; and universal suffrage is a blind force, swayed by habit, by caprice, by infatuation. M. Ferry is indeed a statesman; but he is a statesman crippled and paralyzed by the political conditions under which he has to work.

However grave the anxieties to which our policy in the East may have given rise during the last few months, the public attention has rather been absorbed by the fear of the cholera. The possible spread of the epidemic, the theories of Koch and of Pasteur, have been the universal topic; the very street-boys and cabmen of Paris have caught up the fashionable phrase, and the last and utmost of low abuse is, "You're a microbe." Yet on the whole the cholera has made but few victims this time, and its immediate result has been the cleansing and general sanitation of all our towns, and a far stricter observance of hygienic rules by all classes of the population; insomuch that the rate of mortality has never been lower in France than during the summer of 1884. The towns which have suffered most cruelly, Toulon and Marseilles, will undoubtedly be made the scene of important sanitary works; and everywhere, and especially in Paris, measures will be taken to provide a supply of pure and wholesome water. Drains which infect the water-supply will be diverted; factories which poison the air with unwholesome exhalations will be closed, -as the clubs which had degenerated into gaming-houses for thieves and sharpers have lately been put down, to the joy of all honest men, by the Prefect of Police, M. Camescasse. We may even come to have in all our great towns properly organized Boards of Health, such as Havre alone as present possesses.

İf M. Pasteur, in common with M. Koch, has failed to discover the cholera microbe, he has at any rate found the hydrophobia virus. On this point the experiments made before the Commission of the Académie des Sciences are conclusive. If we choose to make the vaccination of dogs compulsory, we can stamp out hydrophobia; for the vaccinated dog is quite impervious to it. This last splendid discovery, following on so many others, has made M. Pasteur the most universally admired-I might almost say the most universally venerated of all our distinguished men. We were pleased, we were proud, we were touched, to see the enthusiastic homage paid to him by the London Hygienic Congress and the Congress at Copenhagen. How disinterested is the patriotic feeling which always mingles with his scientific ardour M. Pasteur has shown by his refusal of the post of life-senator, which was offered him, in order to remain outside the conflict of parties and pursue his true work undisturbed.

In addition to hydrophobia and the cholera, we have had a few lighter topics of interest, even apart from the sun, who has been, as one may say, the lion of the season. It is a good while since we have seen so much of him, or felt him so hot. For several years we have gone without a summer. But this year the woods, the mountains, the rivers, the sea-shore have put on their old beauty, have recovered all their charm; and never have they had so many visitors. The sensation of the season has been the balloon of MM. Renard and Krebs. These two clever young officers of the military aerostatic establishment at Meudon have invented an ovoid balloon, furnished with a screw worked by an electric machine. With this balloon-the weather being calm-they succeeded in describing with perfect accuracy à course previously determined on. Hereupon the public went into an ecstasy. It was magic: it was genius. The moment was come; the balloon was to supplant the railway; the frontier and the douane were to be done away with for ever, so easy must it be to pass them overhead. As a matter of fact, the new balloon is only an ingenious improvement on the balloons of Tissandier and Dupuy de Lôme. It goes well enough in fair weather, but it cannot rise against the wind. Besides, it is clear enough that the balloon can never become a regular mode of transit. Its speed can never equal that of the railway, except when it is carried along by a dangerous current; against a strong wind it must always be powerless, for want of a fulcrum; and the dangers of the sea are nothing to the dangers of the air. The steerable balloon may be valuable in time of war, but I do not see how it can be applied to the uses of ordinary life.

The celebration, last October, of the bicentenary of Corneille excited quite another sort of interest. The fêtes given at Rouen, the birthplace of the great tragedian, were remarkable for the enthusiasm shown by men of note of all parties in doing honour to one of the noblest of our national celebrities. M. Sully Prudhomme, in his fine poem composed for the occasion, dwelt on the unanimity of feeling produced by the triumphs of genius in a country divided by so many hatreds. In Paris this unanimity was testified in a still more striking manner. The curé of St. Roch said a solemn mass in honour of Corneille, and issued official invitations to the actors of the Comédie Française, the chief interpreters of the poet. They accepted the invitation and attended in a body, the manager at their head. The times are changed since the curé of St. Roch, two centuries ago, refused the offices of the Church to Molière living, and Bossuet from the pulpit uttered words of pitiless cruelty against Molière dead; since the days when the Catholic Church admitted a comedian to her sacraments only on condition of his repenting and renouncing an impious profession, which ranked him with thieves and usurers. To-day she begs the comedians to do her the honour, and is delighted when they condescend to accept her invitation. It is a curious specta cle, and hardly one to inspire reverence for a Church which, after having persecuted the stage with such unchristian and inhuman harshness, now courts it with undignified obsequiousnss

For the rest, France cannot be charged with neglecting her great men. Statuomania rages worse than ever. This very autumn we have put up a statue to Watteau; a statue to Jouffroy-the inventor, after