The Press. — London, England, 1858-12-25 00:00:00

THE PRESS, DECEMBER 25, 1858. Emperor. In the Saturday Review I read an article in which they term the Emperor a liar, a perjurer, and a blood-stained murderer. That Is pretty good in its way, being friends with the French. When people use such violent language they make a great mistake, and, instead of being wise, it is very foolish, because I believe our alliance with France is of the greatest impor tance." In this belief Mr. STURT is certainly not alone. Indeed, we suspect it would be difficult to pick out in all England two sane individuals entertaining an opposite opinion. The journals alluded to by the Hon. Member for Dorchester would certainly go with the crowd. Both are eloquent advocates of the alliance in question. Both concur in lamenting, as its sole defect, its possible fragility. And yet, incredible as it may seem, it is this very fragility which both, with their utmost efforts, strive to augment ! An inconsistency of this kind becomes matter of serious moment when those guilty of it take rank among the leading organs of the press. That the Times and the Saturday Review are un conscious of the risks incurred by their gross and reiterated attacks upon the Emperor of the FRENCH cannot for a moment be supposed. The elevation of LOUIS NAPOLEON to the Imperial throne is one of the most remarkable revolutions of modern days. Now, the journals alluded to would, we are convinced, feel greatly insulted by the supposition that their views on the Philosophy of History are not more profound than those which suggested to M. SCRIBE his clever farce Un verre Beau. What inextinguishable laughter would flash in "small pica" across the length and breadth of the land, were we to assert that the oracular Sibyls who lie perdu in the caverns of Printing-house-square and Southampton street, W.C., can see no further into a revolution than Peter Bell did into a primrose ! At the same time, unless they acknowledge the fit of the cap, they must concede that between the exist ence of the Empire and the actual tendencies and sympathies of France a logical and genetic connection exists which, while it explains and justifies our position, vitiates and condemns theirs. Into the " philosophy," so to speak, of this connection we do not feel called upon to enter. The elements of durability may or may not be wanting to it. But when we recollect that the groundwork of France's political educa tion—her past history—is a history in which everything tends as distinctively to pure, as our own past does to mixed monarchy, we cannot help thinking that the chances in favour of the Empire lie much deeper beneath the surface than its assailants would care to avow. Be this, how ever, as it may, we beg to submit that the journalist makes a flagrant and a fatal mistake when he confounds his office with that of the historian—when he builds up speculations upon the abstract and the possible, instead of prac tically dealing with the actual and the necessary. But the Saturday Review is too sharp not to be conscious of its own inconsequence, and too clever not to find a specious apology for it. In a recent number, it acquits itself of all responsibility by ingeniously arguing that, in strictness, the French alliance does not exist at all ! Treaties and signatures may satisfy the vulgar ; but, observes our clever and cantankerous contemporary, " there is a radical and fundamental contrariety " between the two people—a chasm which no " palaver can bridge over. What is wanting to " the French alliance is the idem relic atque idem " nolle, which is the only sound foundation of " mutual co-operation. In the sense which its " admirers attribute to it, we ',do not hesitate to " say that the French alliance at this moment " does not exist." Now, the above strikes us as a fair specimen of that useful and amusing trick commonly . called " throwing dust into people's eyes." That the idem velle atque idem nolle is " the only sound foundation " of a sincere alliance no one will dispute ' • but that it is so in the sense lent it by the Saturday Review we doubt if any reasoning indi vidual will allow. According to our contempo rary, the idem velle atque idem ,wlle ought to imply the identity, not merely of international interests, but of national interests also. In order to secure " mutual co-operation," it does not suffice that our ally shall recognize a conformity of views between his foreign policy and our own. He must assimilate himself to us in his home policy also. redress as a private individual, or that the process by which the fact whether such redress be due is ascertained,—the true and proper province of the jury,—which is now the same in b o th instances, should be made diametrically opposite in the two cases. Suppose the action of " Smith v. Great Northern Railway Company" had, under the very same circumstances, taken the form of an indictment for manslaughter against the driver of the train, why should the very same issue of culpability or accident be decided in the one case by a unanimous jury, in the other by a majority of jurymen, which is not a jury at all ? Two trials of recent occurrence—that of Dr. BERNARD, the evidence of whose complicity in the attempted assassination of the French Em peror was far from inconclusive, and that of WEL LLNGTON GUERNSEY, to whom the unlawful ab straction, and equally unlawful publication, of a secret State paper, was clearly brought home— abundantly illustrate the uncomfortable fact that, somehow or other, trial by jury does not give to the gravest interests 'of society the pro tection which it was unquestionably intended to afford, and which the oath taken by the jury explicitly pledges them to give. That a remedy is needed, we readily admit. But what is that remedy to be ? It must, we contend, be a remedy correcting certain vicious habits which, of late years, juries have contracted, and restoring them to a condition suited to their original purpose, that of serving as efficient instru ments for the redress of all wrongs, whether public or private. That remedy we believe to be a very simple one ; and though it may not cure the evil in a day, it will do so by degrees, if assiduously and perseveringly employed. It is in the hands of the judges themselves. Let juries be more carefully instructed as to the part assigned to them in the administration of justice. Let them not be permitted to proceed upon a vague and loose notion of " doing justice in the case," which leaves a wide opening for the importation into their decision of all their private opinions on public matters, of their personal notions and prejudices, their sympathies and antipathies; let them be told that all they have to do is to decide, regardless of legal conse quences, upon the evidence placed before them, whether certain facts alleged on the one side, denied on the other, are true or not, whether they are facts or fictions. Let this be done con stantly, not only with great clearness, but with a solemn reference to the obligations of their oath, and it will soon become as rare to find a jury disagree, as it is now to get one to agree whenever any interests of more than ordinary magnitude, public or private, are involved in the issue of the trial. Juries have been a good deal allowed to usurp the functions of the judge, like vestrymen those of the bishop, and ten-pound householders those of the legislator and states man. "Ne sutor ultra crepidam," is a prescrip tion which, properly made up and administered, would cure a good many of the present distem pers of the body politic—that of which Lord CAMPBELL complains among the rest—w ithout the use of so rough a remedy as that proposed by the Noble and Learned, but not always discreet, Lord Chief Justice. THE FRENCH ALLIANCE AND ITS ASSAILANTS. Iv Mr. GERARD STURT'S recent address to the agriculturists of Sherborne does not pretend to the attractions of oratory, it has at least the merit of enlarging the sphere of debate, and of giving to public attention a new and a singularly impor tant direction. After an off-hand slap or two at Mr. BRIGHT, and a bow to Lord DERBY, Mr. STURT proceeds to say : _ _ " There's one more subject that I will lightly touch upon—that is our relations with France. I do not stand up for the Emperor in the Montalembert or the Portuguese affair, but it should be recollected that Frenchmen are not like Englishmen. The Frenchman's motto is, Anything for a row," while the Englishman's motto is, "'Anything for a quiet life." French men are so excitable that, unless you rule them with a rod of iron, you cannot keep them quiet. Now, I think the Times and the Saturday Review have been rather hard upon the 151 He must break with the past, undo all the work of tradition and habit, and purge away the old man by an obligato course of constitutional government. When he shall have done this— and not before—his alliance will become from shadow substance, and his friendship may be counted as something more than a mere name. To strip an argument like this of that oracular and sententious envelope in which the Saturday Review so skilfully wraps u all its lucubrations is to refute it. Thus treat ed, the literal absurdity of the thing saute aux yeux. We see at a glance that, this doctrine once admitted, England must necessarily renounce all alliances, and segregate herself entirely from the European system. The reductio ad absurdum could not be more strikingly illustrated. In that scattered and incoherent community, where nations play the part of individuals, that state illogically enough called "the state of nature " may be said still to prevail. The nobler impulses to association seldom, if ever, come into play. Even the coarser attraction, identity of interest, is often—thanks to that confusion which the mass and complexity of its elements are apt to introduce into every calculation—misunder stood and directly violated. It is the possibility of such a misunderstanding that the statesman and the journalist should earnestly strive to avert. In the case in point, as indeed more or less in every case, this possi bility undoubtedly exists. The barbarous maxim, that England and France are "natural enemies," is, unfortunately, so far upheld by historic recol lections as to have assumed almost the force of an axiom with the masses on either, but more especially on the other, side of the Channel. The enlightened minority, however, take an exactly opposite view. These see in the chances of a war the worst results for European as well as local interests, however the scale of victory may incline. Now, it is the singular prerogative of the man who guides the reins of government in France to share, notoriously and avowedly, the views of this enlightened minority, and, at the same time, to exercise an unprecedentedly potent influence over the unenlightened masses, whose dispositions may be presumed less friendly towards us. It would be difficult to imagine any position claim ing more scrupulous minagement, not merely from England herself, but from every friend to order and progress. That we, or indeed any of our brethren of the English press, should be advocates of pure mo narchy per se, it is preposterous to suppose. But recent history proves, with incontrovertible force, the danger and absurdity of making of Constitu tionalism a bed of Procrustes. Various social and political complications render the French Empire, at the present moment, a European necessity—and, in justifying the broad principle, justify also, of course within limits, the details. If these complications escape the glance of the Saturday Review, we fear that our prothund contemporary's vision must be of that peculiar kind which discerns the remote and the indefinite with marvellous distinctness, while the proximate and the palpable convey to the retina nothing but mist and confusion. DOUBTS AND DIVORCE. ABLE as the judge is who has been selected t. discharge the onerous duty of putting an inter pretation upon the new Divorce Acts, we are at present dreadfully at sea upon these delicate questions. "Marchmont v. Marchmont,“ " Evans v. Evans and Robinson," " Cherry v. Cherry," bid fair to take their place among the causes celebres of matrimonial squabbles. What ever may have been the inherent defects of the old action for crim. con., the new tribunal can afford to throw no stones at its predecessor. Prurient curiosity will have licked its lips over the choice morsels provided for it by the care of the Legislature. Holywell-street itself; before its recent expurgation, could hardly have outdone some of the late revelations. Trials of this description have multiplied threefold under the new regime ; nor can we, as yet, see how decency