END OF CLEMENCEAU'S MINISTRY
It is easy to be tolerant of the Catholic Church and Catholics in
a Protestant country; though even in Great Britain, and of course
only too sadly in the North of Ireland, there are times when the
bitterness inherited from the past makes itself felt, on slight
provocation, in the present. At such times of sectarian outburst we
get some idea ourselves of what religious hatred really means, and
can form a conception of the truly fraternal eagerness to immolate
the erring brethren, nominally of the same Christian creed, which
animated the true believers of different shades of faith, whether
Orthodox or Arian, Catholic or Huguenot, in days gone by. Those who
chance to remember what Catholicism was in Italy, the Papal States,
or Naples, two generations ago--the Church then claiming for itself
rights of jurisdiction and sanctuary, outside the common law--those
who understand what has gone on in Spain quite recently, can also
appreciate the feeling of Frenchmen who, within the memory of their
fellow-citizens still living, and even themselves in some degree under
the Empire, had suffered from Clerical interference and repression,
when the chance of getting rid of State ecclesiasticism was presented
to them at the beginning of the twentieth century. The Church had
entirely lost touch with the temper of the time. Though it may have
been impossible for the Vatican to accept the brilliant suggestion that
the great men of science should all be canonised and the discoverers
of our day should receive the red hat, as secular Cardinals, there was
no apparent reason why a form of supernaturalism which had lived
into and out of two forms of human slavery, and was passing through a
third, should have been unable to adapt itself in some degree to modern
thought. A creed which, in its most successful period, had conveniently
absorbed ancestor-worship as part of its theological propaganda in
China, need not, one would have thought, have found it indispensably
necessary to the salvation of its votaries to cleave to all the old
heresies, inculcated in days when criticism of the incomprehensible and
unbelievable involved the unpleasant possibility of being tortured to
death, or burnt alive.
Nor certainly could its worst enemy have predicted that the
infallibility of the Pope would be invented and thrust upon the
faithful, as a doctrine whose acceptance was essential to their
spiritual welfare, in a period when it was being proved every day
and in all departments of human knowledge that what was universally
believed to be a certainty yesterday is discounted as a fallacy
to-morrow. Nothing in all the long controversy about the Separation
of Church and State in France produced a greater or more permanent
effect upon intelligent Frenchmen than this preposterous claim of
Papal infallibility. Explain it away, whittle down its significance by
any amount of Jesuitical sophistry, and still this declaration that
a mere man could never be mistaken, because he was the Vicegerent
of God, shook the whole framework of Catholic domination, so far as
any participation of the State in the matter was concerned. And the
career and character of many of the Pope's predecessors rendered the
dogma more utterly preposterous to all who had even a smattering of
the history of the Vatican than might otherwise have been the case.
That John XXIII should have been infallible threw a strange light upon
Catholic morality in its highest grades. Yet if Pius infallible, why
not John?
What, however, had more practical effect in turning the scale of public
opinion against the Papacy, its nominees and believers as servants and
paid employees of the State, was the fact that in all the practical
affairs of French life the Catholic Church, as represented by its
ecclesiastical hierarchy, had taken the wrong side. Theoretical or
theological difficulties would never have upset the regard of the
French people for the National Church. But, time after time, the
Clerical party ranged itself with the reactionists, throwing over all
its wisest counsellors, whose devotion to the Church had never been
questioned, when they advised standing by the cause of the people, and
relied solely upon the judgment of bigoted Jesuits. Zola, whom these
creatures hated, showed in his "Germinal," thoroughgoing materialist
as he was, what a noble part a priest of the Church could play, when
the young ecclesiastic stands between the strikers who form part of his
flock and the soldiers who are about to fire upon them. Individuals
might thus rise up to and above the level of their creed, but the
Church in France, as a whole, was represented by men of God who were
a good deal worse than men of Belial. Nor was this all. They pursued
a policy of relentless obscurantism. Their object was not to develop
education but to stunt its growth: not to teach the truth but to foster
lies. So manifest was the determination to take no high view of their
duties that such a man as the venerable Dr. Leplay, a Catholic of
Catholics whose religious convictions did not prevent him from becoming
a master of the theories of Marx, lamented that his Church was proving
itself wholly incompetent to cope with or to stem what, as a Christian,
he recognised was the rising tide of infidelity.
Of this infidelity, the free-thinker and champion of secularism,
Clemenceau, was a type and a prominent example. He saw the Church
as a pernicious influence. His feeling towards it was even more
vehement than that of Voltaire or Gambetta. "_Écrasez l'infâme!_" "_Le
cléricalisme voilà l'ennemi!_" If thought was to be free, if Frenchmen
were to be emancipated from superstition and intolerance, the power of
the Catholic Church must be weakened and, if possible, destroyed. For
him, in this matter, compromise was impossible. His begettings, his
surroundings, his education, his profession, his political life all
made him relentless on this point. Behind the Duc de Broglie, behind
the persecutor of Dreyfus, behind the pretender Boulanger, behind
reaction in all its forms hid the sinister figure of the unscrupulous
power, working _perinde ac cadaver_ against all that was noblest in
France, against all that was highest in the ideals of the Republic. And
if Clemenceau knew well that under all circumstances and at every turn
of events the Catholic Church was the enemy of France and of himself,
the Church had no doubt at all that Clemenceau was its most formidable
foe in French political life.
Long before and after his defeat in the Var, in 1893, the Catholics
never hesitated to join with their enemies, if only this combination
would help them to overthrow Clemenceau. Whatever differences the
French Premier might have with the Socialists on strikes and social
affairs generally, on the matter of the separation of Church and
State they were heartily at one. In fact, Clemenceau was even more
uncompromising than they. The whole texture of his thought revolted
against showing any consideration for a Church which, from his point
of view, had been for centuries the chief and most formidable enemy of
progress in France and the most capable organiser of attacks upon all
democratic and Republican ideals.
The greatest names in French history are the names of those whom the
Catholic Church has persecuted or martyred. Its leaders would resort to
the same tactics now, and have only failed to do so because the power
has slipped from their hands as the truths of science and the wider
conceptions of human destiny have permeated the minds of the masses.
There was no likelihood that, as Prime Minister, Clemenceau, the
free-thinker and materialist, would be inclined to modify his opinions
in favour of what might be regarded as statesmanlike concessions
to the Right on ecclesiastical matters. The danger lay in the other
direction. It was one of the remarkable incidents, in connection with
his first tenure of the Presidency of the Council, that the final
settlement of this important question of the relations of Church
and State should come when he himself was at the head of the French
Government.
When M. Briand's measure for the complete laicisation of the Church so
far as the State was concerned was introduced into the Chamber, he
pointed out in his report that the proposal for complete separation
was not dictated by hatred or political prejudice, nor did it involve
anything at all approaching to the change in the relations of property
when, at the time of the French Revolution, the Church owned one-third
of the total wealth of France. This Act was the assertion of definite
principles which were necessary in order to secure for the State full
mastery in its own country. Freedom of worship for all. No State
payment to ministers of any creed. Equitable management of Church
property taken over by the towns and Communes.
The Bill, after considerable debate in the National Assembly, was
passed by a large majority. In the Senate M. Clemenceau denounced
the settlement as too favourable to the clergy. His criticism was
as mordant as usual. But he neither proposed an amendment nor voted
against the Bill, which passed the Senate without even the alteration
of a word, by a greater proportional majority than it did in the Lower
House.
This, it might have been thought, would have been the end of the
matter for Clemenceau. He had done his full share towards putting
the Catholic Church out of action, and might have been contented, as
Premier, with any further settlement that M. Briand, the member of his
own Cabinet responsible for this important measure, and M. Jaurès, the
powerful leader of the Socialist Party, might come to in regard to
the properties of the Church, about which there had been much bitter
feeling. But Clemenceau has the defects of his qualities. The Pope
had refused to permit his clergy to avail themselves of the excellent
terms French Republicans, Radicals and Socialists had been ready to
accord to them. He had issued two Encyclicals which could certainly be
read as intended to stir up trouble in the Republic--which, in fact,
had brought about some disorder. When, therefore, everything seemed
arranged on this prickly question of valuations and appropriations,
Clemenceau could not resist the temptation to show the unsatisfactory
nature of the entire business to him. It was one of those moments of
impulse when "the Tiger" could not refrain from giving free play to
his propensities, at the expense of his own kith and kin, failing the
presence of his enemies to maul. It was thought that the Ministry must
come down; for both M. Briand and M. Jaurès took this outburst amiss.
But a conversation in the lobby brought the great irreconcilable very
sensibly to a compromise, and Clemenceau failed to give the Catholics
the malicious enjoyment they anticipated. It was a strange ebullition
which exhibited the perennial youth of this statesman of the unexpected.
In other directions than social affairs and Morocco, where he
unfortunately relied upon the Right more than upon the Left in the
Assembly for the support of his Administration, Clemenceau proved that
his claim to act as the advocate of reform as well as the upholder of
order was no pretence.
Whatever may have been its alleged deficiencies in some respects,
Clemenceau's first Ministry was by far the most Radical Government
that had held office under the Republic. And the boldness and decision
which he and his Cabinet displayed in dealing with what they regarded
as Anarchist action--it is fair, perhaps, to recall that Briand himself
had first achieved fame as an Anarchist--on the part of the workers,
they also put in force, when high-placed officers, with a powerful
political backing, tried to impose their will upon the State. Thus the
navy, as has too often happened in French annals, had been allowed to
drift into a condition which was actually dangerous, in view of what
was going on in the German dockyards, and the probable combination
of the Austrian and Italian fleets, with German help, in the
Mediterranean. At the same time, admirals were in the habit of acting
pretty much as they saw fit in regard to the fleets and vessels under
their control. Consequently, important men-of-war had been wrecked
time after time, and more than one serious accident had occurred. In
almost every case also, so powerful was the _esprit de corps_, in the
wrong sense, that the officers in command at the time were exonerated
from blame. There was, therefore, a strong public opinion in favour of
something being done to improve both the fleet itself and the spirit
which animated its commanders. Admiral Germinat, a popular officer
with, as appears, a genuine loyalty to his profession and a desire to
remedy its defects, thought proper to write a very strong letter to
a local service newspaper, making a fierce attack upon the general
management of the navy, without having given any notice of his views
either to the Minister of Marine or the Prime Minister.
Thereupon, M. Clemenceau at once put him on the retired list.
Immediately a great hubbub arose. The very same people who had approved
of Clemenceau's policy, in regard to those whom they called anarchist
workmen, were now in full cry after the President of Council, for
daring to deal thus drastically with a man who, however his good
intentions may have been and however distinguished his career, was
beyond all question an anarchist admiral. The matter became a question
of the day. It was brought up in the Senate amid all sorts of threats
to the stability of the Government. M. Clemenceau, as usual, took up
the challenge boldly himself. His speech was so crushing that the whole
indictment against the Ministry collapsed. The evidence of indiscipline
on the Admiral's part, not only on this occasion but on several others,
and the declaration that Admiral Germinat would not be excluded from
the navy, when he had purged his offence and when his services would be
advantageous to the country, settled the matter and strengthened the
Ministry.
By acquiring the Chemin de Fer de l'Ouest and combining it with other
Government railways, the Ministry made the first important step towards
nationalisation of railways. Clemenceau defended this measure on
grounds that would be, and were, accepted by Socialists; but events
have shown in this particular case that a good deal more is needed than
the establishment of another department of State bureaucracy to render
the railways a national property really beneficial to the community.
As carried out in practice, the acquisition of the Chemin de Fer de
l'Ouest has rather set back than advanced the general policy of railway
nationalisation in France.
A more important measure was that introduced by M. Caillaux and,
amazing to say, passed through the Assembly, for a graduated
income-tax. How this majority was obtained has always been one of
the puzzles of that period. There is no country in the world where a
tax upon incomes is more unpopular than in France, and from that day
to this, in spite of the desperate need for funds which has arisen,
this tax has never yet become law. But it was a genuine financial
reform and creditable to the Government. The Socialists supported it,
though in itself it is only a palliative measure of justice in purely
bourgeois finance. From this period dates the close alliance between
the Socialists as revolutionaries and M. Caillaux as the adventurous
financier and director of the Société Générale, which later produced
such strange results in French politics, and intensified Socialist
hatred for M. Clemenceau. But at this time M. Caillaux, with the full
concurrence and support of the Prime Minister, was attacking all the
bourgeois interests in their tenderest place. The wonder is that such
a policy did not involve the immediate fall of the Ministry. Quite
possibly, had Clemenceau remained in office, it might have become a
permanent feature in French finance. Boldness and boldness and boldness
again is sometimes as successful in politics as it is in oratory.
Although, therefore, to attack pecuniary "interests" of a large section
of the nation is a far more hazardous enterprise than to denounce
eminent persons or to overthrow Ministries, this move might then have
been successful if well followed up.
On March 8th, in this year 1909, Clemenceau unveiled a statue to
the Radical Minister Floquet, with whom he had worked for many
years. The revolutionary Socialists announced their intention of
demonstrating against him on this occasion. They objected to him and
his administration on account of the expedition to Morocco--in which
Clemenceau had certainly run counter to all his previous policy on
colonial affairs--on account of cosmopolitan finance, Russian loans
and the shooting down of workmen on strike. It was the last that
occasioned the bitterest feeling against him, and this was really not
surprising.
Clemenceau had made the workers' liberty to strike in combination
secure, but he did not use the power of the State against the
employers, who, in the mines especially, could on his own showing be
considered only as profiteering trustees under the State. Also, he
refused to all Government servants the right to combine or to strike.
This disinclination to take the capitalists by the throat, while using
the official power to restrain the workers, had a great deal more to do
with the menacing attitude of the Socialists than Morocco or finance.
However, there was no disturbance. Clemenceau took advantage of the
occasion to deliver a speech which was in effect a powerful defence
of the idealist Republicanism of the eighteenth century against the
revolutionary Socialism of the twentieth.
The French Revolution is deified by nearly all advanced Frenchmen.
Its glorification is as much the theme of Jaurès and Vaillant as of
Gambetta and Clemenceau. Bourgeois revolution as it turned out to be,
owing to economic causes which neither individualists nor collectivists
could control, orators of the Revolution overlook facts and cleave to
ideals. Thus Clemenceau told his audience that the French Revolution
was a prodigious tragedy, which seemed to have been the work of
demi-gods, of huge Titans who had risen up from far below to wreak
Promethean vengeance on the Olympians of every grade. The French
Revolution was the inevitable culmination of the deadly struggle
between the growing forces of liberty and the worn-out forces of
autocracy without an autocrat. Yet, said he, the Revolution itself was
made by men and women inspired with the noblest ideals, but educated,
in their own despite, by the Church to methods of domination, condemned
also by the desperate resistance of immeasurable powers to prompt and
pitiless action followed by corresponding deeds of brutal reaction.
The people who had just shed torrents of blood for the freedom of the
world passed, without audible protest, from Robespierre to Napoleon.
Yet the Revolution is all of a piece. The Republic moves steadily on
as one indissoluble, vivifying force. Compare the France of the panic
of 1875 with the France of to-day. Her position is the result of
understandings and alliances and friendships based on the authority
of her armed force. France has resumed her position in Europe, in
spite of a few weak and mean-spirited Frenchmen, whose opposition only
strengthened the patriotic enthusiasm of the nation at large. The
history of the Republican Party had been one long consecration of the
watchwords of the French Revolution. Liberty of the Press. Liberty
of public meeting. Liberty of association. Liberty of trade unions.
Liberty of minds by public schools. Liberty of thought and religion.
Liberty of secular instruction. Liberty of State and worship. Laws had
been passed for relief of the sick. A day of rest had been prescribed
for all. Workmen's compensation for injury had been made imperative.
The Income Tax had been passed by the Assembly. "The Revolution is in
effect one and indivisible, and, with unbroken persistence, the work of
the Republic goes on." A fine record! So argued Clemenceau.
Notwithstanding all the mistakes which Socialists so bitterly resented,
this was a great victory for the Republicans and for the Administration
of which Clemenceau was the head. Not the least important claim to
national recognition of good service done was the establishment of
the Ministry of Labour, over which Viviani, the well-known Socialist,
presided. The pressure of events, as well as the pressure of the
Socialists themselves, might well have pushed the Radical-Socialist
Premier farther along the Socialist path.
Unfortunately for the Prime Minister, and, from more than one point
of view, for the nation, M. Clemenceau had another of those strange
fits of impatience and irascibility which he had exhibited more than
once before. The political antagonism between M. Clemenceau and
M. Delcassé was of long standing, and was intensified by personal
bitterness. During his tenure of the office of Minister for Foreign
Affairs, a position which he had held for seven years, in successive
Administrations of widely different character, M. Delcassé had been
subjected to vehement attacks by the leader of the Radical Left. His
policy in relation to Morocco had been specially obnoxious to M.
Clemenceau. That policy M. Clemenceau had most severely criticised
at the time when M. Delcassé was stoutly resisting that extension
of German influence in Morocco which led to the Foreign Minister's
downfall and the Conference of Algeciras, that M. Delcassé had refused
to accept. The relations between the two statesmen could scarcely have
been worse; but hitherto the Radical leader had carried all before him.
Now came a dramatic climax to the long struggle. A debate arose in
the French Assembly on the condition of the navy. It was admittedly
not what it ought to have been. M. Picard, the Minister of Marine,
made a conciliatory reply to interpellations on the subject of
promised immediate reforms and even complete reconstitution. But this
was not enough for M. Delcassé. The Assembly was not hostile to M.
Clemenceau, and certainly had no desire to oust his Administration;
yet M. Delcassé's direct attack upon the Premier brought the whole
debate down to the level of a personal question. Nevertheless, what he
said was quite legitimate criticism. M. Clemenceau had been a member
of the Commission of Inquiry on the Navy, and could not get rid of
his responsibility for the present state of things. The great critic
of everybody and everything was open to exposure himself. He who had
enjoyed twenty-five years of running amuck at the whole political
world was now being called to account in person as an administrator.
So far M. Delcassé. Clemenceau retorted that M. Delcassé had himself
been on the Naval Commission of 1904. He was full of great policies
here, there and everywhere. What had they resulted in? The humiliation
of France and the Conference of Algeciras. Clemenceau was evidently
much incensed. The fact that he had been obliged, as he thought, by
Germany's action, to follow M. Delcassé's Moroccan tactics rendered
the position exceptionally awkward. It raised the whole question of
M. Delcassé's foreign policy. This gave him a great advantage when
it came to direct political warfare. For M. Delcassé was considered,
even by those who opposed him, as the victim of German hatred, since
he had refused to surrender to German threats and was sacrificed
simply because France dared not face a war. So when he recounted his
agreement with Spain, his agreement with Italy, his agreement--"too
long delayed"--with England, his mediation in the Spanish-American War
and his Treaties of Arbitration, the Assembly went with him. Then, too,
his assaults upon Clemenceau raised the fighting spirit on Delcassé's
side. The feeling was: "This time Clemenceau is getting as good as he
brings." The Prime Minister has not done his duty either as President
of the Inquiry or as President of Council. "I say to him as he said to
Jules Ferry: 'Get out. We won't discuss with you the great interests of
this nation.'"
Very good sword-play. But had Clemenceau kept cool, as he certainly
would have done on the duel ground, there might have been no harm
done. However, he burst out into furious denunciation, exasperated by
the ringing cheers which greeted his opponent's conclusion. It was M.
Delcassé's fault that France had to go to Algeciras. M. Delcassé would
have carried things with a high hand. "But the army was not ready,
the navy was not ready. I have not humiliated France: M. Delcassé
has humiliated her." A purely personal note, disclosing facts that
were the more bitter to the Assembly inasmuch that they were true. It
was indecent--that was the sensation that ran round the House--for
a Premier thus to expose the weakness of his country on a personal
issue, no matter what provocation he may have received. The hostile
vote, therefore, was given against Clemenceau himself, not against his
Government, and he promptly resigned.
Had he desired to bring about his own overthrow he would have acted
precisely as he did; and some thought that this was his intention.
It was an unworthy conclusion to a Premiership which, whatever its
shortcomings, had done extremely good work for the Republic, and to
a Government which had lasted longer than any French Administration
since the downfall of the Empire. The character and leadership of the
Ministry under M. Briand, which succeeded Clemenceau's Cabinet, proved
that only by his own fault had he ensured his official downfall.
As usual, he turned round at once to other work, and accepted an
engagement to speak throughout South America, publishing a pleasant
record of his experiences in an agreeably written book. The Prime
Minister of yesterday was the genial lecturer the day after.
NOTE.--It was said at the time that M. Briand's intrigues in the
lobbies were the real cause of Clemenceau's defeat and resignation.
Lately this has been confirmed to me on good authority. At any rate,
M. Briand benefited. It was he who succeeded his chief.
H. M. H.