The Express.
London, England, 1852-02-19 00:00:00

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LONDON, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 19.

Out readers must give us credit for being as
strongly opposed as other people can be to a French
invasion. We have one point of sympathy with
" Noodle " in SYDNEY SMITH'S " Noodles Oration "
at all events—" nolumus leges Anglin mutari"—
by a foreigner. If we object to hasty schemes for
creating a raw militia—if wo hint that existing
forces should be made serviceable before the country
is called on to pay for new ones—we are
noways inclined to leave the nation in a
defenceless condition. lint the defence wo want
is a natural and wise one. Let us avail our-
selves of our best materials of safety. Let us first
make the most of what we owe to Providence, and
then it will be time to make the most of the propo-
sals of our government.
Now, the important protection of this country lies
in the sea. The sea forms the magic circle round
us, beyond which the intruder is harmless—if the
magician be true. Every due preparation should
await an adventurer who landed, but the best
preparations would prevent him from landing at all.
How is this to be done? Are we to sit still and
look at Cherbourg? Are we to console ourselves
like Sir CHARLES Nsrien with the reflection that
in case of war the Admiralty would possibly lose
their heads? Are we to go on altering the sterns of
line-el.-battle ships, or building steamers for specula-
tive architects? This is all getting somewhat mono-
tonous now-a-days. The fact is, what we want—
what we must achieve—is the command of the
Channel. The Duct knows that it is necessary
—naval authorities believe it to be practicable.
NAPOLEON was so satisfied of the importance
of it that his subtlest scheme was an ela-
borate preparation for it, which would have been
achieved, too, but for the genius of COLLINGWOOD,
the very luckiest weather, and the action of Sir
ROBV.IIT CALDER. We ought to be able to blockade
Cherbourg with steamers whenever it was required.
We ought to have a well-exercised fleet within easy
hail. Of course, steam has facilitated the passr of
the Channel : but steam tells both ways. A eof I
wind that blew our fleet off the coast would effec-
tually prevent any other fleet putting to sea.l
Then, beach landings are not so easy as some
people suppose. Boats loaded with men and arms
would not glide in perfect tranquillity to beaches,
so various, so ticklish in character, that they require
boats of peculiar construction to suit theta respec-
tively. We are very fairly placed—if we take fair
advantage of our means. But this is what wo must
do; this is the thing now become an imperative
duty. At present, it is no wonder if alarmists ex-
pect the very worst, when our authorities,
like the old couple in the Scotch song, are disput-
ing about the " barring of the door" instead of bar-
ring it by the means within sight and reach.
}or a long time the Tagus fleet has been invisible
for the same obvious reasons which apply to the
Spanish fleet in SHERIDAN'S farce. But at last—
thanks to everything but the government—we have
it in our waters. People will be too glad to see
it back to be very critical about its ;past history. This
fleet will give us what, until late years, was a
perennial English possession, the nucleus of a
powerful squadron near home. The germ of a real
defence will exist; and, attention being directed to
naval affairs, we may hope to sec bestowed on naval
preparations of a reformed character some of the energy
which has rushed with such zeal from time to time into
freaks of architecture,—began in haste and repented
of at leisure. It is pretty certain that the French war-
steamer department is at this instant in better con-
dition than ours; yet we have an excellent resource,
if required, in the employment of mercantile steamers,
and, in spite of blunders and corruption, we
have undoubtedly many of the finest vessels in
the world on our navy list. Where, thee, should
we direct special attention? What is die point
most deserving of study and observation? It is
very simply stated : it is the question of men—the
question of manning the navy. We are not quite
so stupi&d ye: by exhibitions of extravagance
in ship-building as to be unaware that it is to its
men that the navy must look for its triumphs. If
our ship-building is unfortunate, why, the more need
that our " manning" should be first-rate.
From the earliest times, this manning has been
done in the oddest manner; seriously, it is perhaps
the oddest thing in all history. It has been a strange
system made up of Inisser faire, luck, and brute force.
Our seamen (and their number is something about a
quarter of a million) have wandered at large on the
high seas. Tfie selection of them for the navy has
been perfectly extraordinary. It has sometimes
taken them as volunteers; sometimes poached for
them as poachers do for pheasants ; sometimes
it gives a bounty, sometimes not • some-
times it has kept them for years and years,
Ptolemy ru'ens : sometimes turned them adrift.
Only within the last twenty years has even the regis-
tration of seamen been adopted. And still the whole
thing is a chaotic affair. " Manning" has always
been the difficulty of difficulties. On an average it
takes months to man a line-of-battle ship at all
decently; and in any ease of hurry many very in-
different seamen must be shipped—seamen whose
training in case of war would cost us more than it is
pleasant to speculate on.
This state of things has caused remonstrances
enough ; but remonstrances with Admiralties, like
new war•steamers, constantly break down. Some-
times it is proposed to organise all our seamen into a
government force in the semi-military style adopted
in France. The answer to this is, that our seamen
are—seamen ; that they will not enter on any such
lengthened engagement; that they demand short
services and quick changes. Why, it was only the
other day, when the Ganges was paid off, that an
offer of six weeks' leave was joined with •
proposal for re-entry, and scarcely any of
the seamen acceded to it. An American sea-
man only engages for three years, and at the end of
that period is at liberty to leave, be his vessel where-
ever she may be. Our seamen engage for five years,
and it is found to be as long a period as they will
stay. Away they wander, carrying their gunnery
practice with them, to impart to others, or to forget
for themselves. How, then, are good seamen to be
got on an emergency ? We must not rely on our
power of dragging away the 3,000 available coast-
guardmen. Still lies must we fancy that impress-
ment
would be tolerated now-a-days in any port in
England.
'The Navy Estimates are down on the parliamen-
tary bill of fare ter immediate discussion. It is not ex-
pected that any increase will be found to have taken
place in our regular expenditure. But a passage in
Lord JOHN Itessett's speech on Monday night
Deemed to foreshadow somewhat of a precautionary
demand for an increased sum for the current year.
For any such demand from such a quarter very
good reasons will have to bo forthcoming. If we
are to pay for our navy more than we do now, let it
be for some palpable improvement; one to which
we may look for the protection which the
country demands, and the necessity for which the
government admits. An honest economy would not
grudge a fair proposal in a cause like this. It would,
of course, look closely at the scheme. A scheme, for
instance, which should deal with this "manning
difficulty in a reasonable way would be likely to be
very favourably received. It would be expected to
be thoroughly out of the old sphere of com-
pulsion and to avoid anything of the air of
• conscription. Its organisation, too, would have
to suit itself to the established rights and customs of
the class for which it was made, and to exhibit
marks of that keowledge of the nautical character
without which good nautical legislation is impossible.,
With • sensible provision for a good supply of
qualified seamen on an emergency, our preparation
for a thorough national defence would begin well.
A little honourable popularity would perhaps • give •
cheerful briskness to Admiralty proceedings. And
at all events it is high time that we should take care
that the element to which we owe our national
supremacy, shall not, by any neglect of it, become
the source of national misfortune or disgrace.

19, 1i52.

FRANCE.

PARIS, TUESDAY EVININO.
There are rompers current in the best informed
circles, that a note of a character likely to be any-
thing but agreeable to Louis Napoleon has just
reached Paris from St. Petersburg. Whether it is
an instruction to the Russian minister or a formal
despatch, is not at present to be ascertained. Its
contents, however, are as nearly as possible of the
following character. The Czar can no longer regard
in silence the rapid steps by which the Pnnce-Presi-
dent is advancing to an unmistakeable term—has seen
with displeasure certain decrees published by the
President of the Republic soon after the results
of the vote of December the 20th and 21st became
known—the act which substitutes tho Imperial
eagle for the Gallic cock on the standards of the
Republic—that which establishes the effigy of the
President on the coinage—and, finally, that which
transfers the presidential residence from the Elyske
to the Tuileries. His Majesty saw in these various
acts, more or less significative indications of tho re-
establishment of another Imperial era, an occurrence
which he must feel it his duty to prevent. The
note, it is believed, says nothin,q of the Orleans
decrees. Ile Russian minister has been to the
Foreign office, and if he has not produced the note
he has acted upon it by demanding explanations on
the subject referred to. The President himself has
since seen the Russian minister, and is said to have
betrayed great indignation at the suspicions enter-
tained. It is probable that the courier who left Paris
for St Petersburg last Wednesday, convey eil some
assurances upon this subject.
TILE NEW PRESS LAW AND DECLARATIONS
OF THE GOVERNMENT.

PARIS, WEDNESDAY Evrosiso.
The Moniteur promulgates at last the new law on
the press, if that can bo called law which sets all
law at defiance. In the charter of 1814, the 14th
article, by reserving to tho King the power of malting
ordinances, virtually neutralised the guarantees con-
tained in the remaining clauses, and enabled the ex-
ecutive power to dispense with all restraint. hence
it is a fashion with the French to call by the name
of the 14th article any clause in a law which enables
the government to dispense with tho rest. In this
sense the 14th article of the present ordinance
is the last clause of the third chapter, which gives to
the executive the power of suppressing by a simple
decree any journal whose existence it regards
as dangerous to the public security. I have
already made known to you in previous let-
ters the principal features of the present law. I
now invite your attention to some points which were
not anticipated. No journal is allowed to give any
report of the trials of•preffia offences, so that the de-
fence pronounced by an advocate in court can-
not be reproduced by any newspaper; nor, indeed,
is the report of law proceedings in any suit or trial
whatever permitted to be published without the per-
mission of the court. No journal is allowed to pub-
lish any report of the debates of the Legis-
lative Body. Permission is only given to
copy what is called the proces-terbal prepared by the
board of the Chamber. This consists simply of the
minutes on the journals of the house, in which the
name of no speaker is mentioned. In this form the
longest debates will not occupy above a column.
No account whatever is allowed to be given of the
sittings of the Council of State. Thus, to all intents
and purposes. the public will remain completely fo-
reign to the business which in all civilised countries
constitutes the chief food of opinion. I have touched,
in a preceding letter, upon the question of judicial
advertisements. This has been, es you will see,
solved in the arbitrary sense. The right of inserting
such advertisements in what journals they please is
taken away from the parties chiefly interested,
and the prefect is allowed to divert this
source of gain, which constitutes one of the
main resources of departmental journals, into the
channel of government patronage. Thus M. Abba-
tuoci, who as a member of the old chamber of depu-
ties, offered the most vehement opposition to the
clause of the Press Bill which empowered
the magistrates to designate the journals in which
the annonees judiciaires were to be inserted, has now
set his name to a decree which confers that privilege
on the prefect. Those clauses which concern
the circulation of foreign journals are much I,
more stringent than was expected. Thus
no foreign newspaper is admitted into France
without previously obtaining the authorisation
of the French government. In fact it would
appear from the 2nd article that if any English
gentleman were to bring over a number of Punelt in
his pocket, and lend it about, he would become liable
thereby to be imprisoned for a term not less than one
mouth or more than ono year, and to a fine of not
less than 41. or more than 2001.
The text of the new law is as follows: