are disgraceful to the régime. Every Prefect, Sub-Prefect, and Government official, whether he be a high magistrate or a simple schoolmaster or postman, is expected to work each in his sphere for the success of the candidate promising his support to the Government, and there are very few who fail to do so, because they all know the continued possession of their post, or their promotion, depends on their zeal for the masters of the day. And then each of those official candidates, to secure a seat in the Chamber, and the enjoyment of the annual stipend of £600 attached to it, indulges in all sorts of promises to his constituents, who are careful to remind him of them when he is elected. The promises mostly concern local or private affairs, and if they happen to clash with the general interests of the country, the Deputy must either risk losing his seat at the next election or sacrifice his country to his little electoral district, — that is to say, to his private interest.
Then the reform of the administration is rendered impossible by the Scrutin d'Arrondissement, because every deputy knows that to vote the suppression of a single useless post might cost him his seat in Parliament. Moreover, he has almost always to provide berths for the sons of influential electors, and however gross the fault of, say, a schoolmaster, police official, or postman, he dare not interfere or demand his removal. With the existence of the Scrutin d'Arrondissement there can be no hope of effecting the long-talked-of reform of the suppression of the many hundreds of useless Sub-Prefectures, which are in reality little else than Government electioneering agencies. Indeed the Scrutin d'Arrondissement, which deprives the deputy of his liberty and makes him the slave of his electors, whose private interests he must defend even to the detriment of those of the whole of France, seems to be at the root of all the ills from which the country is so manifestly suffering. A vast number of people seem to imagine that France can be extricated from this deplorable situation, aptly termed "la mare stagnante" (stagnant pool), by the method of election practised successfully in Belgium since 1900, and which, while securing the proportional representation in Parliament of the political minorities in the country as well as the representation of the majority, frees deputies from the tyranny of their constituents. The partisans of this system, commonly known as the R. P., contend its establishment will make it comparatively easy to operate the necessary administrative reforms, and to adopt social laws calculated to improve the condition of the working classes, and thus to ensure the internal peace and welfare of the land. Indeed the R. P. is regarded by its fervent partisans as a panacea for all the ills with which France is afflicted, and as destined to usher in a new era of prosperity. It would perhaps be too much to expect all
