Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB
[graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

abandonment by the critics of conventional standards of criticism. Every thoughtful word, even by those most severe, was made from the realist's standpoint. It forced a comparison with life and that was a distinct gain.

The critics got at last the point of view of those who praise an imperfect play simply for its honesty of purpose, and its

tendency. My own criticism of Margaret Fleming is that it lacks the simplicity of life. It has too much of plot. Things converge too much, and here and there things happen. Measured by the standard of truth it fails at two or three points in its construction, though its treatment is markedly direct and honest. Measured by any play on the American stage, it stands above them all in purpose, in execution, in power, and is worthy to stand for the new drama. It was exposed to the severest test, and came out of it triumphantly. What the effect will be upon the American drama, it would be hard to say. Certainly whether great or small, that influence will be toward progress, an influence that is altogether good.

Already it has precipitated the discussion of an independent American theatre, where plays of advanced thought and native atmosphere can be produced. It has given courage to many who (being in the minority) had given up the idea of ever having a play after their ideal. It has cleared the air and showed the way out of the cul de sac into which monopoly seemed to have driven plays and players. It demonstrated that a small theatre makes the production of literary plays possible, and the whole field is opening to the American dramatist. The fact that the lovers of truth and art are in the minority, no longer cuts a figure. The small theatre makes a theatre for the minority not only possible, but inevitable.

In the immediate advance in truth, both in acting and play-writing, Mr. and Mrs. Herne are likely to have large part. The work which they have already done entitles them not only to respect, but to gratitude. They have been working for many years to discredit effectism in acting, and to bring truth into the American drama. They have set a high mark, as all will testify who saw the work in Chickering Hall. Now let who can, go higher.

SOME WEAK SPOTS IN THE FRENCH

REPUBLIC.

BY THEODORE STANTON.

LAST autumn the third French republic completed the second decade of its checkered existence, and has thus proved itself to be the most long-lived government which France has known since the advent of the great Revolution a century ago. No previous government has been able to stand eighteen years, so that the present republic has outstripped all its predecessors, whether republican, imperial, or monarchical, leaving even the most fortunate of them two or three years behind, and bidding fair to increase the distance indefinitely. Its longevity has been greater than the first and second republics taken together, which covered a period of a little over sixteen years; while if we combine the existence of all three republics, equal to about thirty-six years, we again find that no other regime has shown such prolonged vitality, the two empires having lived for only twenty-eight years, and the two monarchies for about thirty-three and a half years.

But the early years of the third republic-from 1870 to 1879 like the declining period of the first and second republics, were more monarchical than republican. And again, there are so many weakening influences in the present institutions of France, that the decisive conclusions. which might otherwise be drawn from the foregoing considerations need, I regret to say, to be considerably qualified. Previous to the election to the presidency of M. Grévy, in 1879, the government was happily styled "a republic without republicans." But since that date the same party -the republican-has had supreme control. Practically, therefore, the third republic has been in operation about twelve years, and has, therefore, still to pass that dangerous turning-point in the history of French governments, the twentieth year.

now

I now come to the consideration of some of the more serious causes of lack of faith in the duration of the present regime. But it should be pointed out right here at the start that many of these blemishes, most all of them in fact, have characterized every government in France, so that they are not peculiarly republican; and I hasten to add that my object in pointing them out, in analyzing them and dwelling on them, is not for the purpose of belittling or ridiculing the estimable government controlling the destinies of France. As an American and a republican who has observed contemporary French history on the spot since 1874, who has been an eye witness of many of the crucial episodes of this critical period, who has known personally several of the leading actors and who wishes well for the present institutions, I take up this subject not so much in order to find fault with what is, as to endeavor to discover how far these imperfections and weaknesses endanger the existence of a form of government in which all Americans take such a lively and sincere interest. Nowhere else in the civilized world, not even in France itself, would the fall of the third republic cause such deep regret as in the United States. Hence it is that we desire to know what likelihood there is of such a disaster being brought about, in the hope that by calling attention to the dangers, we may, perhaps, do something to prevent such a lamentable catastrophe.

The greatest peril that has threatened the republic since its foundation in 1870, was the recent Boulanger adventure. Though this rather addle-brained general is now quite dead politically, the causes which gave him strength and nearly plunged France once more into a chaos whence would probably have issued a tyranny of some sort, still exist and are continually on the point of cropping out again. The principal one of them is the lack of union among republicans. Just as the republic owed its final triumph to the circumstance that the royalists and imperialists could not coalesce during the years immediately following 1870, so Boulanger, backed by these same royalists and imperialists, nearly won the day two years ago, almost wholly because the republicans were divided among themselves. Union among republicans is scarcely less necessary to-day than it was during

the dark days of Marshal MacMahon's presidency and the threatened Boulangist coup d'etat.

Since the republicans have had control of the two houses, the minority, especially in the chamber of deputies, has been very strong, the Right to-day numbering about one hundred and seventy deputies, and the Boulangists about thirty more, making a grand total of two hundred in a membership of less than six hundred. That is to say, the Opposition, mustering more than a third of the chamber. And when it

is borne in mind that this minority is not simply a constitutional Opposition, that its advent to power would mean the eventual overthrow of the republic, we perceive how radically different such an Opposition is from that found in the parliament of other countries, where whether the outs come in or the ins go out, no vital change occurs in the nature of the government.

The existence of this recklessly revolutionary minority and the fickleness of republican union are the chief causes of ministerial instability, one of the worst features of the present regime. The ministry has changed so often during the last twenty years, that many republicans have been led to doubt the advantages of the English parliamentary system, and have turned their eyes toward its modification in the United States, where the existence of the Cabinet is independent of a vote of the House. It was this admiration of the American system which led M. Naquet and M. Andrieux

once prominent republican deputies, and the former still a member of the Chamber-to espouse Boulangism, and the general obtained not a little of his popular strength from his oft-repeated assertion that he would put an end to ministerial instability. That this evil is not exaggerated, though the proposed remedy would probably have been worse than the disease, is shown by the most casual glance at French cabinet history since the fall of the second empire.

Since September 4, 1870, up to the present day, there have been no less than twenty-eight different ministries, which makes, on an average, a new ministry about every nine months. There were three ministries in each of the years 1873 and 1877, while in 1876, 1879, 1882, 1883, 1886, and 1887, there were two each. The longest ministry was the second, presided over by M. Jules Ferry, which lasted from February 21, 1883, to April 6, 1885, or a few

« ZurückWeiter »