d respected President of the
French Republic, probably thinking that he was thereby ridding the
world of a tyrant, the public, in a mood perfectly comprehensible if
not justifiable, was ready to take the severest measures against
anyone suspected of Anarchism. An international convention against the
Anarchists was demanded, but this was almost unanimously rejected by
European diplomatists. Parliaments, however, showed themselves more
subservient to the anxiety of the public than the diplomatists. Italy
gave its Government full powers over administrative dealings with all
suspected persons, and France passed a Press law limiting very
considerably, not only the Anarchist press, but the press generally.
Spain had already anticipated this action. Germany took all manner of
trouble to frame exceptional laws, although one cannot quite see how
this country was concerned in the matter. England alone, true to its
traditions, rejected the proposal of the House of Lords to pass
exceptional laws against the Anarchists, Lord Rosebery, who was then
Premier, declaring that the ordinary law and the existing executive
organisation were amply sufficient to cope with the Anarchists.

The question as to which State has pursued the better policy appears
at first extremely difficult to answer. It is believed that we have in
Anarchism something quite new, which has never occurred before,
something monstrous and not human, against which quite extraordinary
measures are permissible. To judge whether this standpoint is correct,
we must, before everything, distinguish carefully the theory from the
propaganda.

The common view--or prejudice--soon disposes of the Anarchist theory:
the anxious possessor of goods thinks it is nothing less than a direct
incitement to robbery and murder; the practical politician merely
regards the Anarchist theory as not worth debate, because it could not
be carried out in practice; and even men of science, as we have seen
in the case of Laveleye, and could prove by other examples, look upon
Anarchist theories merely as the mad and feverish fancies of
extravagant minds.

None of them would much mind if all Anarchist literature were consumed
in an _auto da fe_ and the authors thereof rendered harmless by being
sent off to Siberia or New Caledonia. Such judgments are easily
passed, but whether one could settle the question permanently thereby
is another matter.

That the theory of Anarchism is not merely a systemati