The Modern Regime Volume I Part 33

In effect, direct universal suffrage, counted by heads, is in local society a discordant element, a monstrous system, to which it is adverse. Const.i.tuted as this is, not by human judgment, but by the preponderance of numbers and their force, its mechanism is determined beforehand; it excludes certain wheels and connections.[4206] That is why the legislator must write laws which reflect the nature of our existence, or, at least, translate this as closely as he can, without any gross contradiction. Nature herself presents him with ready-made statutes.[4207] His business is to read these properly; he has already transcribed the apportionment of burdens; he can now transcribe the apportionment of rights.

So, we have seen, local society renders two distinct services[4208], which, that the expenses of both may be met, require two distinct a.s.sessments, one personal and the other real, one levied on everybody and of which the amount is alike for all, and the other levied only on those whose amount is based on what he spends, on the importance of his business, and on the income from his real estate.--In strict equity, the amount of the former should be equal to the average amount of the latter; in effect, as has been shown, the services defrayed by the former are as many, as diverse, and as precious, still more vital, and not less costly than those of which the latter is the price. Of the two interests which they represent, each, did it stand alone, would be obliged to secure the same services, to take upon itself the whole of the work; neither would obtain more in the dividend, and each would have to pay the whole of the expense. Accordingly, each gains as much as the other in the physical solidarity which binds them together. Hence, in the legal bond which unites them they enter into it on an equal footing, on condition that each is burdened or relived as much as the other, on condition that if the latter a.s.sumes one-half of the expense the former shall a.s.sume the other half, on condition that if the latter quota on each one hundred francs expended against calamities and for public roads is 50 francs, the former quota shall also be 50 francs.--Practically, however, this is impossible. Three times out of four the former levy with this apportionment would not be returned; through prudence as well as humanity, the legislator is bound not to overburden the poor.

Recently, in organizing the general tax and the revenue of the State, he has looked out for them; now, in organizing the local tax and the revenue of the department or of the commune, he looks out for them to a still greater extent.

In the new financial scheme, so many centimes, added to each franc of direct tax, form the princ.i.p.al resource of the department and commune, and it is through this extra charge that each taxpayer pays his quota of local expenditure. Now, there is no surcharge on the personal tax, no additional centimes. Under this heading, the laborer without any property or income, the workman who lives in lodgings, on his wages, and from day to day, contributes nothing to the expenses of his commune or department. In vain do "additional centimes" pour down on other branches of direct taxation; they are not grafted on this one, and do not suck away the substance of the poor.[4209]--There is the same regard for the half poor, in relation to the artisan who furnishes his own room, but who lodges in an upper story, and in relation to the peasant whose hovel or cottage has but one door and one window.[4210] Their rate of taxation on doors and windows is very low, purposely reduced, kept below one franc a year, while the rate of their personal tax is scarcely higher.

"Additional centimes" may be imposed on so small a princ.i.p.al and be multiplied in vain, never will they reach more than an insignificant amount.-Not only are the dest.i.tute relieved of both princ.i.p.al and "additional centimes," the verified poor, those who are registered and are helped, or should be, that is to say 2,470,000 persons;[4211] but, again, others, by hundreds of thousands, whom the munic.i.p.al council judges incapable of paying.--Even when people possess but a small piece of land, they are also relieved of the land tax and of the numerous additional centimes which increase it. Such is the case with those who are infirm or burdened with a family. The exchequer, so as not to convert them into beggars and vagabonds, avoids expropriation, selling out their concrete hovel, vegetable garden, and small field of potatoes or cabbages; it gives them receipts gratis, or, at least, refrains from prosecuting them.[4212] In this way the poor peasant, although a land-owner, again exempts himself, or is exempted from his local indebtedness. In truth, he pays nothing, or nearly nothing, otherwise than by prestations (payments) in money or in kind; that is to say, by three days' work on the district roads, which, if he pays in kind, are not worth more than 50 sous.[4213] Add to this his portion, very small and often null, of the additional centimes on the tax on doors and windows, on the personal tax, and on the tax on real estate, in all 4 or 5 francs a year. Such is the amount by which the poor or half-poor taxpayer in the villages liberates himself toward his department and commune.--In the towns, he apparently pays more, owing to the octroi.

But, at first, there are only 1525 communes out of 36,000 in which the octroi[4214] has been established; while in the beginning, under the Directory and Consulate, it was revived only on his account, for his benefit, in behalf of public charity, to defray the expenses of asylums and hospitals ruined by revolutionary confiscation. It was then "an octroi for charity," in fact as well as in name, like the surplus tax on theater seats and tickets, established at the same time and for the same purpose; it still to-day preserves the stamp of its first inst.i.tution.

Bread, the indispensable provision for the poor, is not subjected to the octroi nor the materials for making it, either grain or flour, nor milk, fruits, vegetables, or codfish, while there is only a light tax on butcher's meat. Even on beverages, where the octroi is heavier, it remains, like all indirect taxes, nearly proportional and semi-optional.

In effect, it is simply an increase of the tax on beverages, so many additional centimes per franc on the sum of indirect taxation, as warrantable as the impost itself, as tolerable, and for the same motives.[4215] For the greater the sobriety of the taxpayer, the less is he affected by this tax. At Paris, where the increase is excessive, and adds to the 6 centimes paid to the state, on each quart of wine, 12 centimes paid to the city; if he drinks but one quart a day, he pays, under this heading, into the city treasury 43 francs 80 centimes per annum: but, as compensation for this, he is free of personal tax of 11 3/4%, which this adds to the amount of each rental of the 11 3/4%, whereby this would have added to his rent, and therefore 47 francs per annum as a rent of 400 francs. Thus what he has paid with one hand he gets back with the other. Now, at Paris, all rentals under 400 francs[4216] are thus free of any personal tax; all rentals between 400 and 1000 francs are more or less free, and, in the other octroi towns, an a.n.a.logous discharge reimburses to the small taxpayers a portion more or less great of the sum they pay to the octroi.--Accordingly, in the towns as in the country, they are favored at one time through fiscal relief and at another through administrative favor, now through compulsory deduction and now through total or partial reimburs.e.m.e.nt.

Always, and very wisely, the legislator apportions the burden according to the strength of the shoulders; he relieves them as much as he can, at first, of the general tax, and next, which is still better, of the local tax. Hence, in local expenditure, their quota diminishes out of all proportion and is reduced to the minimum. Nevertheless, their quota of local benefit remains full and entire; at this insignificant price they enjoy the public highways and profit by all the precautions taken against physical ills; each profits by this personally, equally with any millionaire. Each personally receives as much in the great dividend of security, health, and convenience, in the fruit of the vast works of utility and enjoyment due to improved communications, which preserve health, a.s.sist traffic, and beautify the locality, and without which, in town as well as in the country, life would be impossible or intolerable.

But these works which cost so much, these defensive operations and apparatus against inundations, fires, epidemics, and contagions, these 500,000 kilometers of district and department roads, these dikes, quays, bridges, public gardens, and promenades, this paving, drainage, sweeping and lighting, these aqueducts and supplies of drinkable water, all this is paid for by somebody, and, since it is not done by the small taxpayer, it is the large or average taxpayer who pays for it. The latter then, bears, besides his obligatory weight, a gratuitous surplus burden, consisting of the weight of which the other is relieved.

Evidently the greater the number of the relieved, the heavier will be this overweight, and the relieved count by millions. Two millions and a half of declared poor[4217] are relieved of any direct tax, and, therefore, of all the centimes which have just increased the burden.

Out of 8 millions of real-estate owners,[4218] 3 millions, considered as insolvent, pay neither the real estate tax nor the centimes which it comprises. In the octroi towns, it is not the minority but the majority of the inhabitants who are relieved in the way just described; in Paris,[4219] out of 685,000 rentals, 625,000, in other terms twelve out of thirteen lodgings, are exempt, wholly or in part, from the personal tax, the princ.i.p.al and "additional centimes." On each franc of this princ.i.p.al there are 96 of these superadded centimes for the benefit of the town and department and because the department and the town expend a good deal, and because receipts are essential for the settlement of these accounts, this or that sum is noted beforehand in every chapter of receipts, and the main thing now is to have this paid in, and it must be paid by somebody; it matters little whether the peasants are few or numerous; if among thirteen taxable persons there is only one that pays, so much the worse for him, for he must pay for himself and the other twelve. Such is the case in Paris, which accounts for the "additional centimes" here being so numerous,[4220] owing to there being less than 60,000 rentals for the acquittance of the entire tax, and, besides paying their own debt, they must discharge the indebtedness of 625,000 other rentals, the tax on which is reduced or null.--Frequently, before the Revolution, some rich convent or philanthropic seignior would pay the taxes of his poor neighbors out of his own pocket; willingly or not, 60,000 Parisians, more or less well lodged, now hand over the same sum, bestow the same charity, on 625,000 thousand badly or only tolerably lodged Parisians; among these 60,000 benefactors whom the exchequer obliges to be benevolent, 34,800 who pay from 1000 to 3000 francs rent, bestow, under this heading, a pretty large sum for charitable purposes, while 14,800, who pay more than 3000 francs rent, pay a very large one.

Other branches of direct taxation, in the country as well as in the city, present the same spectacle: it is always the rich or the well-to-do taxpayers who, through their over-tax, more or less completely relieve the poor or straitened taxpayers; it is always the owners of large or small properties, those who pay heavy or average licenses, the occupants of lodgings with more than five openings,[4221]

and whose locative value surpa.s.ses 1000 francs, who in local expenditure pay besides their own dues the dues of others and, through their additional centimes, almost entirely defray the expenses of the department and commune.--This is nearly always the case in a local society, except when it chances to possess an abundant income, arising from productive real estate, and is able to provide for its wants without taxing its members; apart from this rare exception, it is forced to tax some in order to relieve others. In other words, the same as with other enterprises, it manufactures and sells its product but, just the reverse of other enterprises, it sells the product, an equal quant.i.ty of the same product, that is to say, equal protection against the same calamities, and the equal enjoyment of the same public highway, at unequal prices, very dear to a few, moderately dear to many, at cost price to a large number, and with a discount to the ma.s.s; to this last cla.s.s of consumers the discount goes on increasing like the emptiness of their purse; to the last of all, extremely numerous, the goods are delivered almost gratis, or even for nothing.

But to this inequality of prices may correspond the inequality of rights, and compensation will come, the balance may be restored, distributive justice may be applied, if, in the government of the enterprise, the parts a.s.signed are not equal, if each member sees his portion of influence growing or diminis.h.i.+ng along with the weight of his charge, if the regulations, graduating authority according to the scale of the levies, a.s.signs few votes to those who pay the lowest quotas of expense and receive alms, and many votes to those who give alms and pay the largest quotas of the expenditure.

III. Equity in taxation.

Possible compensation in the other side of the scale.--What the distribution of rights should be according to the principle of distributive justice.--In every a.s.sociation of stock-owners.--In local society confined to its natural object.--In local society charged with supplementary functions.--The local statue in England and Prussia.--The exchange equitable when burdens are compensated by rights.

Such is the rule in every a.s.sociation of interests, even in stock companies in which the distribution of charges allows of no favor or disfavor to any a.s.sociate. It must be noted that, in these companies, co-operation is not compulsory, but voluntary; the a.s.sociates are not, as in the local society, conscripts enlisted under the constraint of physical solidarity, but subscribers bound together under the impulsion of a deliberate preference, each remaining in its of his own free will just as he entered it; if he wishes to leave it he has only to sell his stock; the fact of his keeping this confirms his subscription, and, thus holding on to it, he daily subscribes anew to the statute. Here, then, is a perfectly free a.s.sociation; its is accordingly perfectly equitable, and its statute serves as a model for others.

Now this statute always makes a distinction between the small and the large stockholders; it always attributes a greater share of authority and influence to those who share most largely in the risks and expenses; in principle, the number of votes in confers on each a.s.sociate is proportionate to the number of shares of which he is the owner or bearer.--All the stronger is the reason why this principle should be embodied in the statutes of a society which, like the local community, diminishes the burden of the small taxpayer through its reductions, and increases by its extra taxation the burden of the large or average taxpayer; when the appointment of managers is handed over to universal suffrage, counted by heads, the large and average taxpayers are defrauded of their dues and deprived of their rights, more so by far and more deeply wronged than the bearer or owner of a thousand shares in an omnibus or gas company if, on voting at a meeting of stockholders, his vote did not count for more than that of the owner or bearer of a single share.--

How is it then when a local society adds to its natural and unavoidable purpose an optional and supplementary purpose;

* when, increasing its load, it undertakes to defray the cost of public charity and of primary education;

* when, to support this additional cost, it multiplies the additional centimes;

* when the large or average taxpayer pays alone, or nearly alone, for this benevolent work by which he does not benefit;

* when the small taxpayer pays nothing, or next to nothing, to this benevolent work by which he does benefit;

* when, in voting for the expense thus apportioned, each taxpayer, whatever the amount of his contribution, has one vote and only one?

In this case, powers, benefits, reductions, and exemptions, all the advantages are on one side, that of the poor and half-poor forming the majority and who if not restrained from above, will persistently abuse their numerical force to augment their advantages, at the increasing expense of the rich or well-do-do minority. In the future, in the local society, the average or large taxpayer is no longer an a.s.sociate but a victim; were he free to choose he would not enter into it; he would like to go away and establish himself elsewhere; but were he to enter others, near or remote, his condition would be no better. He remains, accordingly, where he is, physically present, but absent in feeling; he takes no part in deliberate meetings; his zeal has died out; he withholds from public affairs that surplus of vigilant attention, that spontaneous and ready collaboration which he would have contributed gratis; he lets matters go along without him, just as it happens; he remains there just what he is, a workable, taxable individual in capricious hands, in short, a pa.s.sive subject who gives and has become resigned.--For this reason, in countries where an encroaching democracy has not yet abolished or perverted the notion of equity, the local statute applies the fundamental rule of an equitable exchange; it lays down the principle that

he who pays commands, and in proportion to the sum he pays.[4222]

In England, a surplus of votes is awarded to those most heavily taxed, even six votes to one voter; in Prussia, local taxation is divided into thirds, and, accordingly, the taxpayers into three groups, the first one composed of heavy taxpayers, few in number, and who pay the first third, the second composed of average taxpayers, average in number, and who pay the second third, and the third composed of the great number of small taxpayers, who pay the last third.[4223] To each of these groups is a.s.signed the same number of suffrages in the commune election, or the same number of representatives in the commune representation. Through this approximate balance of legal burdens and of legal rights, the two sides of the scales are nearly level, the level which distributive justice demands, and the level which the state, special interpreter, sole arbiter and universal minister of distributive justice, should establish when, in the local community, it imposes, rectifies, or maintains the articles in accordance with which it derives its income and governs.

IV. On unlimited universal suffrage.

How unlimited universal suffrage found its way into local society.--Object and mode of the French legislator.

If the government, in France, does just the opposite, it is at the height of a violent and sudden revolution, forced by the party in power and by popular prejudice, through deductive reasoning, and through contagion. According to revolutionary and French usage, the legislator was bound to inst.i.tute uniformity and to make things symmetrical; having placed universal suffrage in political society, he was likewise determined to place it in local society. He had been ordered to apply an abstract principle, that is to say, to legislate according to a summary, superficial, and verbal notion which, purposely curtailed and simplified to excess, did not correspond with its aim. He obeyed and did nothing more; he made no effort outside of his instructions. He did not propose to himself to restore local society to its members, to revive it, to make it a living body, capable of spontaneous, co-ordinate, voluntary action, and, to this end, provided with indispensable organs. He did not even take the trouble to imagine, how it really is, I mean by this, complex and diverse and inversely to legislators before 1789, and adversely to legislators before and after 1789 outside of France, against all the teachings of experience, against the evidence of nature, he refused to recognize the fact that, in France, mankind are of two species, the people of the towns and the people of the country, and that, therefore, there are two types of local society, the urban commune and the rural commune. He was not disposed to take this capital difference into consideration; he issued decrees for the Frenchman in general, for the citizen in himself, for fictive men, so reduced that the statute which suits them can nowhere suit the actual and complete man. At one stroke, the legislative shears cut out of the same stuff, according to the same pattern, thirty-six thousand examples of the same coat, one coat indifferently for every commune, whatever its shape, a coat too small for the city and too large for the village, disproportionate in both cases, and useless beforehand, because it could not fit very large bodies, nor very small ones. Nevertheless, once dispatched from Paris, people had to put the coat on and wear it; it must answer for good or for ill, each donning his own for lack of another better adjusted; hence the strangest att.i.tudes for each, and, in the long run, a combination of consequences which neither governors nor the governed had foreseen.

V. Rural or urban communes.

No distinction between the rural and the urban commune.

--Effects of the law on the rural commune.--Disproportion between the intelligence of its elected representatives and the work imposed upon them.--The mayor and the munic.i.p.al council.--Lack of qualified members.--The secretary of the mayoralty.--The chief or under chief of the prefectorial bureau.

Let us consider these results in turn in the small and in the great communes; clear enough and distinct at the two extremities of the scale, they blend into each other at intermediate degrees, because here they combine together, but in different proportions, according as the commune, higher or lower in the scale, comes nearer to the village or to the city.--On this territory, too, subdivided since 1789, and, so to say, crumbled to pieces by the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, the small communes are enormous in number; among the 36,000, more than 27,000 have less than 1000 inhabitants, and of these, more than 16,000 have less than 500 inhabitants.[4224] Whoever has traveled over France, or lived in this country, sees at once what sort of men compose such purely rural groups; he has only to recall physiognomies and att.i.tudes to know to what extent in these rude brains, rendered torpid by the routine of manual labor and oppressed by the cares of daily life, how narrow and obstructed are the inlets to the mind; how limited is their information in the way of facts; how, in the way of ideas, the acquisition of them is slow; what hereditary distrust separates the illiterate ma.s.s from the lettered cla.s.s; what an almost insurmountable wall the difference of education, of habits, and of manners interposes in France between the blouse and the dress-coat; why, if each commune contains a few cultivated individuals and a few notable proprietors, universal suffrage sets them aside, or at least does not seek them out for the munic.i.p.al council or the mayoralty.--Before 1830, when the prefect appointed the munic.i.p.al councilors and the mayor, these were always on hand; under the monarchy of July and a limited suffrage, they were still on hand, at least for the most part; under the second Empire, whatever the elected munic.i.p.al council might be, the mayor, who was appointed by the prefect, and even outside of this council, might be one of the least ignorant and least stupid even in the commune. At the present day (1889), it is only accidentally and by chance that a n.o.ble or bourgeois, in a few provinces and in certain communes, may become mayor or munic.i.p.al councilor; it is, however, essential that he should be born on the soil, long established there, resident and popular. Everywhere else the numerical majority, being sovereign, tends to select its candidates from among the average people: in the village, he is a man of average rural intelligence, and, mostly, in the village a munic.i.p.al council which, as narrow-minded as its electors, elects a mayor equally as narrow-minded as itself Such are, from now on, the representatives and directors of communal interests; except when they themselves are affected by personal interests to which they are sensitive, their inertia is only equaled by their incapacity[4225]

Four times a year a bundle of elaborately drawn papers, prepared by the prefecture, are submitted to these innately blind paralytics, large sheets divided into columns from top to bottom, with tabular headings from right to left, and covered with printed texts and figures in writing--details of receipts and expenses, general centimes, special centimes, obligatory centimes, optional centimes, ordinary centimes, extra centimes, with their sources and employment; preliminary budget, final budget, corrected budget, along with legal references, regulations, and decisions bearing on each article. In short, a methodical table as specific as possible and highly instructive to a jurist or accountant, but perfect jargon to peasants, most of whom can scarcely write their name and who, on Sundays, are seen standing before the advertis.e.m.e.nt board[4226] trying to spell out the Journal Officiel, whose abstract phrases, beyond their reach, pa.s.s over their heads in aerial and transient flight, like some confused rustling of vague and unknown forms. To guide them in political life, much more difficult than in private life, they require a similar guide to the one they take in the difficult matters of their individual life, a legal or business adviser, one that is qualified and competent, able to understand the prefecture doc.u.ments, sitting alongside of them to explain their budget, rights and limits of their rights, the financial resources, legal expedients, and consequences of a law; one who can arrange their debates, make up their accounts, watch daily files of bills, attend to their business at the county town, throughout the entire series of legal formalities and attendance on the bureaus,--in short, some trusty person, familiar with technicalities, who they might choose to select.--Such a person was found in Savoy, before the annexation to France, a notary or lawyer who, practicing in the neighborhood or at the princ.i.p.al town, and with five or six communes for clients, visited them in turn, helped them with his knowledge and intelligence, attended their meetings and, besides, served them as scribe, like the present secretary of the mayoralty, for about the same pay, amounting in all to about the same total of fees or salaries.[4227]--At the present time, there is n.o.body in the munic.i.p.al council to advise and give information to its members; the schoolmaster is their secretary, and he cannot be, and should not be, other than a scribe. He reads in a monotonous tone of voice the long financial enigma which French public book-keeping, too perfect, offers to their divination, and which n.o.body, save one who is educated to it, can clearly comprehend until after weeks of study. They listen all agog. Some, adjusting their spectacles, try to pick out among so many articles the one they want, the amount of taxes they have to pay. The sum is too large, the a.s.sessments are excessive; it is important that the number of additional centimes should be reduced, and therefore that less money should be expended. Hence, if there is any special item of expense which can be got rid of by a refusal, they set it aside by voting No, until some new law or decree from above obliges them to say Yes. But, as things go, nearly all the expenses designated on the paper are obligatory; willingly or not, these must be met, and there is no way to pay them outside of the additional centimes; however numerous these are, vote them they must and sanction the centimes inscribed. They accordingly affix their signatures, not with trust but with mistrust, with resignation, and out of pure necessity. Abandoned to their natural ignorance, the twenty-seven thousand petty munic.i.p.al councilors of the country are no more pa.s.sive, more inert, more constrained than ever; deprived of the light which, formerly, the choice of the prefect or a restricted suffrage could still throw into the darkness around them, there remains to them only one safe tutor or conductor; and this final guide is the official of the bureaus, especially this or that old, permanent chief, or under clerk, who is perfectly familiar with his files of papers. With about four hundred munic.i.p.al councils to lead, one may imagine what he will do with them: nothing except to drive them like a flock of sheep into a pen of printed regulations, or urge them on mechanically, in lots, according to his instructions, he himself being as automatic and as much in a rut as they are.

VI. The larger Communes.

Effects of the law on the urban commune.--Disproportion between the administrative capacity of its elected representatives and the work imposed on them.--Lack of a special and permanent manager.--The munic.i.p.al council and the mayor.--The general council and the intermediary committee.--The prefect.--His dominant rule.--His obligatory concessions.--His princ.i.p.al aim.--Bargains between the central authority and the local Jacobins.--Effect on this on local government, on the officials, and in local finances.

Let us now look at the other side of the scale, on the side of the large urban communes, of which there are 223, with above 10,000 inhabitants, 90 of these above 20,000 inhabitants, 9 of the latter above 100,000 inhabitants, and Paris, which has 2,300,000.[4228] We see at the first glance cast upon an average specimen of these human anthills, a town containing from 40,000 to 50,000 souls, how vast and complex the collective undertaking becomes, how many princ.i.p.al and accessory services the communal society must co-ordinate and unite together in order to secure to its members the advantages of public roads and insure their protection against spreading calamities:

* Maintenance and repairs of these roads, the straightening, laying-out, paving, and drainage, the constructions and expense for sewers, quays, and rivers, and often for a commercial harbor;

* the negotiations and arrangements with departments and with the state for this or that harbor, ca.n.a.l, dike, or insane asylum; the contracts with cab, omnibus, and tramway companies and with telephone and house-lighting companies; the street-lighting, artesian wells and aqueducts;

* the city police, supervision and rules for using public highways, and orders and agents for preventing men from injuring each other when collected together in large a.s.semblies in the streets, in the markets, at the theater, in any public place, whether coffee-houses or taverns;

* the firemen and machinery for conflagrations; the sanitary measures against contagion, and precautions, long beforehand to insure hygiene during epidemics;

* and, as extra burdens and abuses, the establishment, direction and support of primary schools, colleges, public lectures, libraries, theaters, hospitals, and other inst.i.tutions which should be supported and governed by different a.s.sociations; at the very least, the appropriations to these establishments and therefore a more or less legitimate and more or less imperative intervention in their internal management.

Such are the great undertakings which form a whole, which bear alike on the present, past, and future budget of the commune, and which, as so many distinct branches of every considerable enterprise, require, for proper execution, to have their continuity and connection always present in the thoughtful and directing mind which has them in charge.[4229]

Experience shows that, in the great industrial or financial companies, in the Bank of France, in the Credit Lyonnais, and in the insurance, navigation, and railroad companies, the best way to accomplish this end is a permanent manager or director, always present, engaged or accepted by the administrative board on understood conditions, a special, tried man who, sure of his place for a long period, and with a reputation to maintain, gives his whole time, faculties, and zeal to the work, and who, alone, possessing at every moment a coherent and detailed conception of the entire undertaking, can alone give it the proper stimulus, and bring to bear the most economical and the most perfect practical improvements. Such is also the munic.i.p.al administration in the Prussian towns on the Rhine. Then, in Bonn, for instance,[4230] the munic.i.p.al council, elected by the inhabitants "goes in quest" of some eminent specialist whose ability is well known. It must be noted that he is taken wherever he can be found, outside the city, in some remote province; they bargain with him, the same as with some famous musician, for the management of a series of concerts. Under the t.i.tle of burgomaster, with a salary of 10,000 francs per annum, he becomes for twelve years the director of all munic.i.p.al services, leader of the civic orchestra, solely entrusted with executive power, wielding the magisterial baton which the various instruments obey, many of these being salaried functionaries and others benevolent amateurs,[4231]

all in harmony and through him, because they know that he is watchful, competent, and top quality, constantly occupied with am overall view, responsible, and in his own interest, as a point of honor, wholly devoted to his work which is likewise their work, that is to say, to the complete success of the concert.

Nothing in a French town corresponds to this admirable type of a munic.i.p.al inst.i.tution. Here, also, and to a much greater extent in the village, the effect of universal suffrage has been to discredit the true notables and to incite the abdication or insure the exclusion of men who, by their education, the large proportion of the taxes they pay, and still greater influence or production on labor and on business, are social authorities, and who should become legal authorities. In every country where conditions are unequal, the preponderance of a numerical majority necessarily ends in the nearly general abstention or almost certain defeat of the candidates most deserving of election. But here the case is different; the elected, being towns-people (citadins) and not rural, are not of the species as in the village. They read a daily newspaper, and believe that they understand not only local matters but all subjects of national and general importance, that is to say, high level economy, philosophy and law; somewhat resembling the schoolmaster who, being familiar with the rules of arithmetic, thinks that he can teach the differential calculus, and the theory of functions. At any rate, they talk loud and argue on every subject with confidence, according to Jacobin traditions, being, indeed, so many budding Jacobins. They are the heirs and successors of the old sectarians, issuing from the same stock and of the same stamp, a few in good faith, but mainly narrow-minded, excited, and bewildered by the smoke of the glittering generalities they utter. Most of them are mere politicians, charlatans, and intriguers, third-cla.s.s lawyers and doctors, literary failures, semi-educated stump-speakers, bar-room, club, or clique orators, and vulgar climbers. Left behind in private careers, in which one is closely watched and accepted for what he is worth, they launch out on a public career because, in this business, popular suffrage at once ignorant, indifferent, is a badly informed, prejudiced and pa.s.sionate judge and prefers a moralist of easy conscience, instead of demanding unsullied integrity and proven competency. Nothing more is demanded from candidates but witty speech-making, a.s.sertiveness and showing off in public, gross flattery, a display of enthusiasm and promises to place the power about to be conferred on them by the people in the hands of those who will serve its antipathies and prejudices.

Thus introduced into the munic.i.p.al council, they const.i.tute its majority and appoint a mayor who is their figurehead or creature, now the bold leader and again the docile instrument of their spite, their favors, and their headlong action, of their blunders and presumption, and of their meddlesome disposition and encroachments.--In the department, the council general, also elected by universal suffrage, also bears the marks of its origin; its quality, without falling so low, still descends in a certain degree, and through changes which keep on increasing: politicians install themselves there and make use of their place as a stepping-stone to mount higher; it also, with larger powers and prolonged during its vacations by its committee, is tempted to regard itself as the legitimate sovereign of the extensive and scattered community which it represents.--Thus recruited and composed, enlarged and deteriorated, the local authorities become difficult to manage, and from now on, to carry on the administration, the prefect must come to some understanding with them.