The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-03-19 00:00:00

THE DAY'S NEWS.

Well may the Ministerial journals be beginning
to express alarm at the conduct of Louis Napo-
leon,—the Potentate preferred to all the rest of
the Sovereigns of Europe, by a Whig-Liberal
Administration, as one with whom, at this very
conjuncture, to "draw closer the ties of friend-.
ship!" Only too truly is the Daily News con-
strained to declare, of the cession of Savoy, as
just arranged by the French Emperor, that it is
an event likely to be " more serious in its ulti-
mate and necessary consequences than any which
has occurred since the fall of the great Napoleon,"
—since " henceforth not even the most sanguine
will be able to believe in the maintenance of
peace; for Europe has now to reckon with a
Power which tramples upon the most sacred
rights, and has cast off respect for everything but
material force. Sooner or later, therefore," it is
added, " Europe 'will find itself compelled in self
defence to confine this Power within the limits
of law." And how is this to be done, but by
going to war ? May it not, then, with only too
much reason be feared, that the Ministers of
England are, by their policy, contributing to sow
the wind, and that in due time not only England
but Europe will thereby reap the whirlwind?
No wonder that the Funds have begun to droop
again. Notwithstanding all the activity in trade
of which we hear so much, and the bright hopes
of commercial and manufacturing prosperity
which the fiscal policy of the Government are
said to be exciting, the Stock Markets are dull,
and Consols, in particular, have to submit to a
reduction. No great wonder, either, that all
the arrivals of gold from Australia and other
places, as they come to hand, are taken for the
Continent. Gold may well be in demand there,
under the growing disquiet that is prevailing—
..Bl3r.vnted, if not in some measure occasioned, by
the foreign policy of the English Ministry.
The little interlude in the House of Commons,
the other night, in which Mr. Bright aid Mr.
Newdegate were the performers, was not only
entertaining, but instructive. The latter hon.
member had stated, in the course of the debate
on the Commercial Treaty, that Mr. Cobden,
although professing, as we all know, to be a
democrat of the first water, had yet lately become
so considerably " Napoleonised," as to have freely
avowed his inability to discover what France had
to complain of in the present regime ; and as
ignoring, in the most unaccountable manner, the
importance of such elements in national happi•
ness, as free thought, free speech, free inquiry,
and free institutions. All this Mr. Cobden autho-
rised his democratic friend, John Bright, utterly
to repudiate and contradict,—selecting one so
democratic for the purpose, we may conclude, in
order to give the higher colouring, for the nonce,
to his own democratic professions. Mr. Newde-
gate, however, had no difficulty in producing his
authority for what he had said,—and it was a
Manchester and a Liberal one, having been stated
in a letter of the Manchester Guardian's London
correspondent, who had affirmed, on the informa-
tion of a member of Parliament just returned
from Paris, where he had had the best opportu-
nities of acquiring such information, that Mr.
Cobden was understood to have become " Napo-
leonised" to a higher degree than one could easily
suppose a lover of free institutions would have
been, by ever so frank an acceptance of free-
trading principles on the part of the Emperor.
Doubtless there must have been some ground for
this. Louis Napoleon and he could never, indeed,
have fraternised with such cordiality as they
appear to have done, had there not, at least, been
considerable congeniality of sentiment. Besides,
as Mr. Newdegate showed 'on Friday night, Mr.
Cobden is the author of a pamphlet lauding the
autocratic institutions of Russia; and in one of
his speeches, which the hon. gentleman quoted,
he had not hesitated to make a comparison of t
institutions of France
and
be most disparaging to the
l a tEteurg—l intendedn g, t
"Wheno
I am told that the Emperorpreenptower,l answer by possesses
absolute and irresponsible
citingthings which he could not, if he
He could not endow with
would,
three
accomplish.
landswi and titles one religion as the exclusively
paid religion of the State; he could not create a
landed hereditary peerage with estates entailed
under the law of primogeniture ; he could not
impose taxes upon succession to per4onal prq-