Nothing astonishes such persons, and everything disconcerts them.
Trembling with fear or brave to the point of heroism, they would go through fire and water or fly from a shadow.
"They are ignorant of cause and effect and of the connecting links between events.They are as promptly discouraged as they are exalted, they are subject to every description of panic, they are always either too highly strung or too downcast, but never in the mood or the measure the situation would require.More fluid than water they reflect every line and assume every shape.What sort of a foundation for a government can they be expected to supply?"Fortunately all the characteristics just described as to be met with in parliamentary assemblies are in no wise constantly displayed.Such assemblies only constitute crowds at certain moments.The individuals composing them retain their individuality in a great number of cases, which explains how it is that an assembly is able to turn out excellent technical laws.
It is true that the author of these laws is a specialist who has prepared them in the quiet of his study, and that in reality the law voted is the work of an individual and not of an assembly.
These laws are naturally the best.They are only liable to have disastrous results when a series of amendments has converted them into the outcome of a collective effort.The work of a crowd is always inferior, whatever its nature, to that of an isolated individual.It is specialists who safeguard assemblies from passing ill-advised or unworkable measures.The specialist in this case is a temporary leader of crowds.The Assembly is without influence on him, but he has influence over the Assembly.
In spite of all the difficulties attending their working, parliamentary assemblies are the best form of government mankind has discovered as yet, and more especially the best means it has found to escape the yoke of personal tyrannies.They constitute assuredly the ideal government at any rate for philosophers, thinkers, writers, artists, and learned men--in a word, for all those who form the cream of a civilisation.
Moreover, in reality they only present two serious dangers, one being inevitable financial waste, and the other the progressive restriction of the liberty of the individual.
The first of these dangers is the necessary consequence of the exigencies and want of foresight of electoral crowds.Should a member of an assembly propose a measure giving apparent satisfaction to democratic ideas, should he bring in a Bill, for instance, to assure old-age pensions to all workers, and to increase the wages of any class of State employes, the other Deputies, victims of suggestion in their dread of their electors, will not venture to seem to disregard the interests of the latter by rejecting the proposed measure, although well aware they are imposing a fresh strain on the Budget and necessitating the creation of new taxes.It is impossible for them to hesitate to give their votes.The consequences of the increase of expenditure are remote and will not entail disagreeable consequences for them personally, while the consequences of a negative vote might clearly come to light when they next present themselves for re-election.
In addition to this first cause of an exaggerated expenditure there is another not less imperative--the necessity of voting all grants for local purposes.A Deputy is unable to oppose grants of this kind because they represent once more the exigencies of the electors, and because each individual Deputy can only obtain what he requires for his own constituency on the condition of acceding to similar demands on the part of his colleagues.[29]
[29] In its issue of April 6, 1895, the Economiste published a curious review of the figures that may be reached by expenditure caused solely by electoral considerations, and notably of the outlay on railways.To put Langayes (a town of 3,000inhabitants, situated on a mountain) in communication with Puy, a railway is voted that will cost 15 millions of francs.Seven millions are to be spent to put Beaumont (3,500 inhabitants) in communication with Castel-Sarrazin; 7 millions to put Oust (a village of 523 inhabitants) in communication with Seix (1,200inhabitants); 6 millions to put Prade in communication with the hamlet of Olette (747 inhabitants), &c.In 1895 alone 90millions of francs were voted for railways of only local utility.
There is other no less important expenditure necessitated also by electioneering considerations.The law instituting workingmen's pensions will soon involve a minimum annual outlay of 165millions, according to the Minister of Finance, and of 800millions according to the academician M.Leroy-Beaulieu.It is evident that the continued growth of expenditure of this kind must end in bankruptcy.Many European countries--Portugal, Greece, Spain, Turkey--have reached this stage, and others, such as Italy, will soon be reduced to the same extremity.Still too much alarm need not be felt at this state of things, since the public has successively consented to put up with the reduction of four-fifths in the payment of their coupons by these different countries.Bankruptcy under these ingenious conditions allows the equilibrium of Budgets difficult to balance to be instantly restored.Moreover, wars, socialism, and economic conflicts hold in store for us a profusion of other catastrophes in the period of universal disintegration we are traversing, and it is necessary to be resigned to living from hand to mouth without too much concern for a future we cannot control.
