summed up in the ultra-Radical or semi-Socialist L'Euvre, financed by the Hennessy brothers. During the war L'Œuvre made it a point to tell the truth, which was a high ambition, and tried to fulfil its ideals with an extraordinary cleverness, occasionally associated with a disquieting boldness. Since the Armistice the disquieting points have become more and more ominous, while the tone of the newspaper has steadily lost the dignity which the national danger made it imperative for even pacifist journals to preserve. But it is no less true that the whole Radical Press takes its arguments from the leaders contributed by M. Robert de Jouvenel, the embodiment of brilliant ideology served by the nimblest pen, and its wit from the articles of that king of humorists, G. de la Fouchardière. Paradox is plentiful in a periodical run by two such men, but paradoxes are just what a party trying to be at the same time patriotic and international is in need of.

The Bloc National possesses the counterpart of L'Œuvre in L'Action Française, whose Royalism is just as extreme and occasionally paradoxical, but the contributions of M. Maurras, M. Bainville and even Léon Daudet are a mine of information brazenly pillaged by foe as well as friend, and reflections from their doctrines are to be found in the most unexpected quarters. However, I should say that Le Temps, formerly the official organ of Radicals, is now the mouthpiece of the miscellaneous Conservatism summed up by the Bloc National. Its concurrence is the most valuable asset of M. Poincaré, and has caused many a heartburn in the opposite party.

As I said above, M. Poincaré himself is the leading influence in the present election; yet this influence is not altogether clear. M. Poincaré is a moderate and patriotic Radical, but a Radical all the same, while the majority supporting him is anti-Radical. This paradox has appeared perplexing more than once, especially when M. Poincaré formed his new Cabinet, almost entirely excluding the majority and calling in men who had recently voted against him on that same legislation by decrees which he regards as fundamental. Yet even this apparent inconsistency has proved useful, because it testifies to the continuation somehow of the strongest feeling France has known since the great Revolution, the Union Sacrée. The Bloc National was reassured by several solemn asseverations of the Premier that its cause was his cause, and by his presence on April 25 at the banquet of the Fédération Républicaine. On the other hand, the Radicals when they clamour, Down with the Reaction!' never dare to go quite the length of saying, 'A bas Poincaré!' They would much rather shout, 'A bas Millerand!' because the President is anxious to modify the Constitution, which to his Prime Minister is a fetish. So, although M. Poincaré will always lack magnetism, he is popular

with the Bloc National, and not absolutely unpopular with its opponents, as the notary in a small town is often the Catholic families' lawyer, even if he grieves them by never going to church, because he is such a perfect defender of their interests.

The most important element in an election is of course the electorate, but apart from great national phenomena carrying away millions, like the Italian Fascismo or the Chauvinist wave in Germany, it is also the most obscure. Certainly M. Poincaré has the country with him on the subject of Reparations. A speech like that recently delivered by Mr. Graham, plainly saying that if Germany is made to pay Reparations in full she will become a dangerous commercial rival, may or may not be sound economically, but it hurts the sense of justice of the whole French nation. Whatever M. Daudet and M. Mandel may have thought to the contrary, it is also a fact that the French electorate is not angry with the Premier for having raised the taxes in order to stabilise the franc. As for legislation by decrees, it will be popular in France, as it is in Italy and Germany, if it results in tangible economies. On all these vital points we can safely prophesy that the election will be in favour of M. Poincaré.

It may not be as certain as regards the problem of security. The reason is the importance which the country attaches to it and its mistrust of practically all solutions. French people realise that in fact there cannot be any solution, that alliances are precarious, while the League of Nations panacea is, at least at present, more a narcotic than a remedy, and what we can expect in the future, as in the past, can be little better than lulls. France is farther away from wishing a war than she has ever been, yet war-cries are more audible in Germany than ever, and some sort of arrangement must be found, even should it only ensure ten years' peace. It is not by any means impossible that the election should be affected in a direction opposed to M. Poincaré by the success of the Nationalists in Germany. The Radicals are doing their utmost to impress their electors with the idea that the greatest misfortune at the present moment would be isolation, that France cannot get away from isolation without the friendship not only of England, but of the British Government and of the British Press, and M. Poincaré can never be persona grata with either the British Government or the British Press or the British financiers. How far the popularity of M. Poincaré can be endangered by this aspect of his policies and the use his enemies are certain to make of it at the last cannot be foreseen. All that we can say is that the millions have a curious way of sensing at times complex issues which even intelligent individuals cannot make up their minds about.

The purely political side of the election is almost as obscure. It was not so in 1919. A bleu horizon election was as certain in France

as a khaki election in England. But there is an abyss between the enthusiasm which the victory created five years ago and the weariness which would undoubtedly be the characteristic to-day if a dogged resolve to stick to what seems to be one's rights, impersonated in M. Poincaré, did not coexist with it. Literature has violently divorced itself from war memories and from the exalted tone which during the critical years imposed itself on writers. So has public opinion, but nothing has come to take the place of the wonderful inspiration which the great struggle used to be to even the most cynical. The development of European politics has been accompanied with disgust and disappointment, with doubtful promises and with reproaches, with irritated reminders of ideals and with indignant references to wasted sacrifices. Confusion has prevailed not because issues were difficult to grasp, but because they were too many. All this could only produce fatigue. At the present moment and in spite of the agitation created by an election it is almost impossible to know whether public opinion is more influenced by the Nationalism associated with the Bloc National or by on the whole inferior motives which Radicalism beautifies as the love of peace and philanthropy. At various bye-elections Radicals have been successful, not so much on account of the theses they were defending as because they have an older and stronger organisation, especially in provincial towns, because they are more experienced politicians and because they were so long in power that the average elector has to make an effort to realise that they are now in opposition.

It is mostly between that local animus and higher views that the contest is going on. Anybody with an experience of provincial milieus knows how the most important issues are apt to be overshadowed by very unimportant individuals indeed. Should this happen on the 11th, and should there be, in spite of all present appearances, a return to Radicalism, it would be Radicalism of a very different kind from that with which we were familiar until 1914. Practical issues would surge round it on all sides and would compel it to an action hardly discernible from that which M. Poincaré has recently seemed inclined to favour, viz., Nationalism mitigated by an international understanding, much in the spirit of the Belgians. When one tries to visualise the Cabinet which M. Poincaré's successor would have to form it is almost impossible to see it different from the present Administration. This is enough to show that the election, all-important as it may seem at this juncture, has, however, nothing in common with the great elections of 1877, which finished the Monarchist hopes, of 1889, when Boulanger was a possible Mussolini, or of 1898, when the Dreyfus affair was in full swing and Socialism appeared as a formidable threat. ERNEST DIMNET.

MODERN SAMURAI1

GOVERNMENT,' cried Mussolini in his great pre-election speech at the Palazzo Venezia, 'is a matter of will. It is my will to govern and to go on governing.' There is the gospel of Fascismo in a nutshell. It claims an exclusive right to govern Italy. This is not a question of vulgar office-seeking. It is, of course, true that politicians are never reluctant to expatiate on the patriotic and disinterested nature of their ambitions and their supreme qualifications to govern. But most of them are not surprised if the electors occasionally disbelieve them, and they accept periods of opposition with philosophy. Mussolini, however, differs from them in that he not only claims, but expects, the monopoly of office, in the same spirit as the younger Pitt when he exclaimed, 'I know I can save this nation, and nobody else can.' He differs also by the fact that he is the head, not of a political party, but a caste, a band of the elect, much the same in homogeneity and in absolute personal devotion to their chief as the Communists in Russia, under the rule of Lenin. There are an aloofness from ordinary political methods in his system and an almost religious quality in his position which mark them out as quite distinct from those of political leaders in other countries, and make them far less liable to those waves of revulsion which so often swamp the seemingly unshakable popularity of democratic leaders. The erudite reader will doubtless call to mind the parallel case of Augustus, who was Pontifex Maximus at the time he held the tribunicia potestas. Mussolini bases his claim to permanent supremacy upon the general ground that he has brought to Italy a new civilisation and a new spirit. The new civilisation is an order directed by the unquestioned authority of a political aristocracy. The new spirit is that of 'discipline, order, work.' It will at once be seen that these ideals constitute, not an innovation, but a revival. The sole permanent achievement of the French Revolution was the defamation of the aristocratic ideal of government, which has, in fact, in most countries revived, but

1 The Samurai were the feudal aristocracy of Japan, who ruled the country with unquestioned authority for many centuries. They were subject to a strict caste code.

in appearance hides itself beneath a protective democratic covering. We remember the feudal ages in the corruption of their decadence; but all that has come down to us of their pristine political virtues is some account of the institutions of chivalry, so garbled that its exponents appear as a set of armoured Raffles. We forget the fact that the European aristocracies won their predominance because they were the fathers and shepherds of their people. We are blinded by that philosophic expression, democracy, to such facts as that the Athenian republic comprised only 25,000 citizens among a population of 300,000 slaves and foreigners. We are only just beginning to realise that the most stupendous change in all political conceptions has been caused by the performance of slave labour by machines instead of men ; and that the world, having twisted its fabric during a hundred years of agony in order to divide its pattern into ethnological squares, is now beginning the torment of the next division into economic squares. The new incentive to rivalry among nations is the control of the raw materials of power production. The enormous importance of the men who dig coal and iron, the vast power of the individuals who control machines possessed of godlike power, has completely altered society values, and calls for the production of a new aristocracy whose virtue is the same as that of the old aristocracy, namely, efficiency, but whose texture is quite different. The new aristocracy must be composed of persons whose sole recommendation is merit. The meaning of it can be grasped by a literal translation of the word 'aristocracy': 'dictatorship of the best.' The dynasty' of the Antonines, who, of course, broke the hereditary in favour of the adoptive system, is a case in point. Either this aristocracy must be produced, recognised, and its claims admitted, or else nations will become the prey of a class war. For it is possible to do two things in a society wherein production and organising are both so vitally important. The Government can allow the apparent disproportion of the respective rewards to exasperate the operatives against the organisers, with the result that the armies of industry tear themselves to pieces or fritter away their powers in futile squabbling. The first process is the triumph of Communism, the second that of Socialism. The alternative is that the Government should be above, beyond, and stronger than class, and should insist on keeping the peace. This is equally easy to say and difficult to do, for it demands qualities in the Government of quite an exceptional character. It demands that government should be in the hands of a political aristocracy possessed collectively and individually of rigid morality, unremitting application, an impersonal and impartial sense of justice, absolute altruism, and transcendent idealism. Upon these