The Modern Regime Volume I Part 35

is a collective body; for example, at Berlin, it comprises 34 persons, of which 17 are specialists, paid and engaged for twelve years, and 17 without pay. In western Prussia, the munic.i.p.al management consists generally of an individual, the burgomaster, salaried and engaged for twelve years.]

[Footnote 4230: Max Leclerc, ibid., p.20.--"The present burgomaster in Bonn was burgomaster at Munchens-Gladbach, before being called to Bonn.

The present burgomaster of Crefeld came from Silesia.... A lawyer, well known for his works on public law, occupying a government position at Magdeburg," was recently called "to the lucrative position of burgomaster" in the town of Munster. At Bonn, a town of 30,000 inhabitants, "everything rests on his shoulders he exercises a great many of the functions which, with us, belong to the prefect."]

[Footnote 4231: Max Leclerc, ibid., p. 25.--Alongside of the paid town officers and the munic.i.p.al councilors, there are special committees composed of benevolent members and electors "either to administer or superintend some branch of communal business, or to study some particular question." "These committees, subject, moreover, in all respects to the burgomaster, are elected by the munic.i.p.al council."--There are twelve of these in Bonn and over a hundred in Berlin. This inst.i.tution serves admirably for rendering those who are well disposed useful, as well as for the development of local patriotism, a practical sense and public spirit.]

[Footnote 4232: Aucoc, p. 283.]

[Footnote 4233: Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, "L'administrateur locale en France et en Angleterre," pp.26, 28, 92. (Decrees of March 25, 1852, and April 13, 1861.)]

[Footnote 4234: J. Ferrand, ibid., p. 169, 170 (Paris, 1879): "In many cases, general tutelage and local tutelage are paralyzed.... Since 1870-1876 the mayors, to lessen the difficulties of their task, are frequently forced to abandon any rightful authority; the prefects are induced to tolerate, to approve of these infractions of the law....

For many years one cannot read the minutes of a session of the council general or of the munic.i.p.al council without finding numerous examples of the illegality we report.... In another order of facts, for example in that which relates to the official staff, do we not see every day agents of the state, even conscientious, yield to the will of all-powerful political notabilities and entirely abandon the interests of the service?"--These abuses have largely increased within the past ten years.]

[Footnote 4235: See "La Republique et les conservateurs," in the Revue des Deux Mondes of March 1, 189?, p.108.--"I speak of this de visu from experience, (SR.): I take my own arrondiss.e.m.e.nt. It is in one of the eastern departments, lately represented by radicals. This time it was carried by a conservative. An attempt was first made to annul the election, which had to be given up as the votes in dispute were too many. Revenge was taken on the electors. Gendarmes, in the communes, investigated the conduct of the cures, forest-guard, and storekeeper. The hospital doctor, a conservative, was replaced by an opportunist. The tax-comptroller, a man of the district, and of suspicious zeal, was sent far into the west. Every functionary who, on the even of the election, did not have a contrite look, was threatened with dismissal. A road-surveyor was regarded as having been lukewarm, and accordingly put on the retired list. There is no petty vexation that was not resorted to, no insignificant person, whom they disdained to strike. Stone breakers were denounced for saying that they ought not to have their wages reduced. Sisters of charity, in a certain commune, dispensed medicine to the poor; they were forbidden to do this, to annoy the mayor living in Paris. The custodians of mortgages had an errand-boy who was guilty of distributing, not voting-tickets, but family notices (of a marriage) on the part of the new deputy; a few days after this, a letter from the prefecture gave the custodian notice that the criminal must be replaced in twenty-four hours. A notary, in a public meeting, dared to interrupt the radical candidate; he was prosecuted in the court for a violation of professional duties, and the judges of judiciary reforms condemned him to three months 'suspension.' This took place, "not in Languedoc, or in Provence, in the south among excited brains where everything is allowable, but under the dull skies of Champagne.

And when I interrogate the conservatives of the West and the Center, they reply: "We have seen many beside these, but is long since we have ceased to be astonished!"]

[Footnote 4236: Ibid., p.105: "Each cantonal chief town has its office of informers. The Minister of Public Wors.h.i.+p has himself told that on the first of January, 1890, there were 300 cures deprived of their salary, about three or four times as many as on the first of January, 1889."]

[Footnote 4237: These figures are taken from the latest statistical reports. Some of them are furnished by the chief or directors of special services.]

[Footnote 4238: Taine could hardly have imagined how costly the modern democracy would, 100 years later, become. How could he have imaged that the "Human Rights" should become the right to live comfortably and well at the expense of an ever more productive society.]

[Footnote 4239: De Foville, pp.412, 416, 425, 455; Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, "Traite de la science des finances," I., p.717.]

[Footnote 4240: "Statistiques financieres des communes en 1889":--3539 communes pay less than 15 common centimes; 2597 pay from 0 fr. 15 to 0 fr. 30; 9652 pay from 0 fr. 31 to 0 fr. 50; 11,095 from 0 fr. 51 to 1 franc, and 4248 over 1 franc.--Here this relates only to the common centimes; to have the sum total of the additional local centimes of each commune would require the addition of the department centimes, which the statistics do not furnish.]

[Footnote 4241: Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, ibid., I., pp.690, 717.]

[Footnote 4242: Ibid.: "If the personal tax were deducted from the amount of personal and house tax combined we would find that the a.s.sessment of the state in the product of the house tax, that is to say the product of the tax on rentals, amounts to 41 or 42 millions, and that the share of localities in the product of this tax surpa.s.ses that of the state by 8 or 9 millions (Year 1877.)"]

[Footnote 4243: Between 1805 and 1900 the French franc was tied to the gold standard. A 20 francs coin thus weighed 7,21 grams. Its price is today in 1998 1933.--francs. Taine's figures have to be multiplied by app. ten in order to compare with today's prices. No real comparison can, however, be made since production per capita has multiplied by a large factor and so have taxes.]

[Footnote 4244: "Situation financiere des department et des communes,"

published in 1889 by the Minister of the Interior. Loans and indebtedness of the departments at the end of the fiscal year in 1886, 630,066,102 francs. Loans and indebtedness of the communes Dec. 30, 1886, 3,020,450,528 francs.]

[Footnote 4245: De Foville, p.148; Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, "L'etat moderne et ses fonctions," p. 21.]

[Footnote 4246: During the 110 years since Taine wrote his somber previsions the French have had to pay the same penalty as other ill managed Democracies; Bankruptcies direct or indirect with galloping inflation and enormous devaluations with as a consequence impoverishment of naive depositors and credulous pension fund partic.i.p.ants, wars for which France was badly prepared with millions of dead and prisoners and with occupation of France as a result. The culprits, the elected politicians, have either died or anyhow lived out their lives comfortably on the indexed retirements which the oligarchy generally reserves for themselves. (SR.)]

[Footnote 4247: Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, "L'Administration locale en France et en Angleterre," p. 28. (Decrees of March 25, 1852, and April 13, 1861.) List of offices directly appointed by the prefect and on the recommendation of the heads of the service, among others the supernumeraries of telegraph lines and of the tax offices.]

End of The Modern Regime, Volume 1 [Napoleon]