than were his professional companions at the table, so that any one who did not know the superior order of workmen in Paris, would hardly suppose him to be one of their class. Though a man of great influence in his trade, he was neither a socialist, an anarchist, nor a member of any political faction; he cared more for social progress than for political agitation, and for popular education more than for either.

Turning to my silent but observant neighbour, I asked him what were the prevalent views in his class on the questions we had been so warmly debating.

'Monsieur,' he said in a quiet and measured tone, 'I think it impossible to reduce the opinions of workmen to a single definite expression. It is too much the habit of politicians, and of social reformers generally, to assume that there is such a thing as a workman's opinion en masse. The working men of Paris are as much divided by parties and factions as the Chamber or the bourgeoisie, and perhaps into even more numerous parties, and are prepared to go into even greater extremes in order to beat their rivals. There is a general-indeed, we may say, a universal-feeling amongst the workmen in the cities that their present condition is one of monstrous hardship, though how it is to be righted they radically differ. As to the Exhibition, they look upon it as part of the ordinary action of the bourgeoisie and the capitalist class—no worse and no better. Nothing will persuade them that it had any other origin than the craving of the rich to increase their wealth, of the politicians to show that they can create good times as well as the Empire, and of the adventurers generally to have a field for a lucky coup. But they see that the Exhibition has raised prices and increased employment. Workmen, like other Parisians, enjoy a treat at a cheap rate; and they are not disposed to quarrel with an enterprise which brings them some good for the moment, and which is not worse than other doings. of the bourgeoisie everywhere.'

So that the political situation,' said I, 'remains much as it was before. But what do your fellow-workmen say now on the burning question of the hour?'

'You mean,' he replied with a smile, ce petit monsieur, whom you are fêting in London-the dictator, that is to be, of the new Republican Empire to come? Well, he has not gained way in the last three months. But Boulanger was never the hero of the mass of the workmen of Paris. They are divided on this, as on most other questions: but Boulangisme is rather an idea of the bourgeoisie, of the capitalist classes, and of the great Conservative masses of France.'

"You think it a very formidable rival to the Republic?' I asked.

'To the Government and the Chamber,' he replied, 'a most for

midable rival. We should all be Boulangists to-morrow, if we could trust Boulanger in the least, or even make out what his policy will be. The election for the Seine, which astonished the world so much, was mainly a protest against the Government in power, and the whole Parliamentary system. France is weary of both; and if she has not got rid of them before, it is for want of a substitute of even decent pretensions. The set of things in France is increasingly strong towards a Republican Dictatorship. And if it does not come to the front, it is simply for want of any possible Dictator.'

'And Boulanger is impossible?' I asked.

'I do not say that,' he replied; with the mass of the Conservative voters earnestly longing for a one-man Government, and the mass of the Republican workmen furiously aiming at the overthrow of the present Parliamentary Government, more unlikely things than Boulangisme are possible, and more unsatisfactory pretenders than Boulanger may be welcomed. I do not vote for him myself, because I cannot trust the man; and I am not willing to hand France over to a syndicate of adventurers. But the mass of my fellow-workmen of Paris will accept almost any change at almost any price. Still, except amongst anarchists, communards, and the party of the barricade, the General has no real following amongst the Paris workmen.'

But here I perceived that my tête-à-tête conversation with my friend the printer was destined to end. The rest of the company were eager to impart to me their views, and all at the same moment. For to drop the name 'Boulanger' in the midst of a political gathering, is like throwing a dynamite cartridge amongst them. The first to break in was a young journalist of 'extremist' opinions, who writes. paragraphs for M. Rochefort's paper.

'What does the man signify,' said he, with a vehement exclamation, so long as he helps us to get rid of the crew who are now exploiting the people and plundering the Republic for themselves and their friends? We are quite strong enough to dictate our own terms when the victory is won, and to give to the movement a Republican shape. France is perishing, and the people are being flayed, for want of a Republican concentration and a Government of initiative and courage. This is what Boulangisme means. I am not about to defend the General, for I do not care a straw whether Boulanger is a humbug or a hero. He does for the democratic and social Republic what the Tour Eiffel does for your precious Exhibition he draws the masses to the spot, and is everywhere en évidence by day and by night. And, if he becomes dangerous, we will pull him down and ship him off to the States, as we mean to do some day to the Eiffel Tower.'

:

'On the contrary,' cried out a professor from the Ecole Normals, who had been decorated by Napoleon the Third, and had a sneaking

kindness for the Empire, 'Boulanger means an Imperial system based on universal suffrage and the encouragement of merit, trade, and art."

'Say rather a Conservative and Catholic Monarchy,' struck in a young student of theology, for the General is merely the Monk who is to restore King Philippe the Seventh.'

'And in the meantime France is to be handed over to a man who is only fit to play croupier at Monte Carlo!' cried the deputy.

'A Napoleon without the glory, a pretender without a claim, and a dictator without a policy!' shouted the vehement doctor.

But here the conversation became too rapid as well as too confused to be reported at all. Gredin, coquin, roi des larrons, miscreants of bourgeois, le Tonquinois, parliamentary corruption, were the only distinct phrases which I could catch in the hubbub.

We finished our coffee hastily, took another sip of chartreuse, and prepared to go our ways.

'And what am I to tell my friends at home?' said I to the printer as we left the house, for he had been almost the only man in the room who had remained a quiet spectator. What am I to think of such confusion of opinion?:

'It is not greater than what exists in Paris,' said he, and the issue is quite as obscure.'

So we parted, and I went up the Eiffel Tower to see if I could find a more tranquil horizon.

THE NEW LIBERALISM.

MORE than three years have passed since the Liberal party, at the instance of Mr. Gladstone and a section of his colleagues, committed itself to the policy of Home Rule. One of the most remarkable phenomena of modern politics was the large measure of assent with which that policy was received by the Liberal electorate, who up to that time had been taught by their leaders to regard Home Rule even under the auspices of Mr. Butt and his aristocratic entourage either as a dangerous conspiracy against the Empire or the fantastic chimera of a handful of political dilettantes. But large and preponderating as was the support given by the Liberal party to the late Prime Minister, and small numerically as was the secession, the nature of that secession marks an epoch, the character of which is best defined by the epigrammatic phrase of Mr. Gladstone-the classes against the masses.'

He would be but a superficial observer of contemporary politics who conceived that Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule propaganda was the causa causans of that wide-spread desertion of modern Liberalism by the upper and middle classes; the movement has been steadily continuous since the introduction of the abortive Reform Bill of 1866, and has been from time to time accelerated throughout the series of democratic measures which marked Mr. Gladstone's administrations : the Home Rule policy precipitated and almost completed an exodus which hitherto had been gradual and therefore less perceptible.

It would undoubtedly be a speculative inquiry of some interest to investigate the various causes which have contributed to the defection from Liberalism of the middle class. One cause, and probably the most considerable, lies on the surface: the battle of the middle class has been fought and won. Free trade, the removal of religious disabilities, the participation and perhaps preponderance of the commercial interest in the work of government have transferred the bourgeoisie from the party of progress to the party of rest. The reforms of the future menace, or appear to menace, the interests of the middle class. Nationalisation of the land, a graduated scale of taxation, free education-in a word, legislative enforcement of the Benthamist doctrine of 'the greatest happiness of the greatest number'-are regarded by that

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The Chartists foresaw this

class with apprehension and dismay. result when they passionately opposed half-measures,' on the plea that if the working class fought the battle of the middle class it would be left unaided to fight its own.

The Home Rule policy may not unjustly be said to have afforded to many a pretext for openly separating from a party with which for long anterior thereto they had been completely out of sympathy. It is not, indeed, in London alone that the middle class has severed itself from Liberalism; the same condition obtains to an almost equal extent throughout the southern and midland provinces, while even in the northern counties the strength of middle-class Liberalism is year by year diminishing. A notable illustration that this is so has been during the last few years afforded in the increasing difficulty that the party managers find in procuring suitable Parliamentary candidates. In the metropolis, not merely in 1886 but also in 1885, the majority of Liberal candidates were men who had but small pretensions, whether intellectual or social, to the honour of a seat in Parliament.

The Nonconformist agitation for religious equality is almost the last tie that binds a section of the middle class to the new Liberalism, while the greater tolerance of the Church and the removal of the more oppressive and invidious distinctions between it and the Nonconformist sects have tended to minimise the aggressiveness of the Disestablishment movement. Now, indeed, for the first time in the history of English politics, we find Liberalism almost exclusively identified with the particular interests of the working class.

It may, of course, be contended that Liberalism presents two aspects, the progressive and the executive or administrative policy that it pursues, and that in its latter aspect it still has claims upon the loyalty of the middle class, which will upon occasion assert themselves and meet with fitting response. Undoubtedly this distinction between the two parties in a measure yet obtains, but it is not a fundamental distinction, but one dependent rather upon the personality of the repective party leaders. The wisdom and expediency of peace and economy must be generally recognised by every government that, as ours, is largely representative of and dependent upon the commercial interest; and indeed the most effective and zealous opposition to military and naval expenditure and departmental extravagance has been found recently on the Conservative benches under the leadership of Lord Randolph Churchill, while Lord Salisbury, whatever his personal predilections may be, has hitherto been effectively restrained by his colleagues from meddlesome interference in European politics.

But while, on the one hand, the new Liberalism has thus alienated the middle class, on the other it is in a deplorable state of disorganisation, scarcely removed from anarchy. The reason