The Express.
London, England, 1863-01-13 00:00:00

HIGH WATS" AT LONDON BIUDOL

This DAT Akealag. 711. 180.....Allerame. 7b. 44a.
ZO-itoaiow—Maraim 71. Uss......tflerattaa. 80. We.

LONDON, TUESDAY, JANUARY 13.

WHEN a "strong man armed," as the peculiar
admirers of the Emperor of the FRENCH delight to
call him, or, as we should prefer to put it, when a
man whom the timorous servility of his fellow-
creatares has invested with a power of life and
death over the most civilized portion of the human
race, speaks in the name and with the authority
of a warlike, restless, and ambitious people, with
every money-market in Europe hanging on his
lips, it is something to be grateful for that his
utterances cause no precipitate or excessive
movement in public securities, and that the
most searching scrutiny detects nothing in those
sonorous periods to which say precise signification
can be attached. It would puzzle the moat in-
genious speculator to make mischief out of any one
of these vague and purposeless paragraphs. Nor
happily is there any particular promise for the
future to be extracted from aoy single phrase of
this discourse by that vulgar credulity which
no experience has shaken. As a document by
which the future history of the Second Empire
will be judged, the Estriaoa's Speech on the
opening of the French Chambers yesterday
was not unworthy of the man, the place, or the
occasion, and it will probably be read by a
new generation of Frenchmen with tears of
laughter and of shame. Living in a land where a
man may speak the thing he will, it is perhaps
difficult to understand the moral condition of a
land in which one man only may speak the thing
he will, while all the rest are bound to believe him.
Suppose the Emperor of the Faimcu to be •
Chairman of Directors addressing a body of share-
holders on the out transactions and prospects of the
Company, and the composition is a masterpiece of
deliberate and confident mystification. In this sense
it deserves the most respectful and admiring study.
It would be pure amusement to analyse and test
it, sentence by sentence, were it not a bitterly
melancholy task for all but syoophants and time-
servers. A Master of Legions, with France for
his footstool, may be excused for treating the world
as his waahpot. Is it not an idle luxury of dupes
to scan too closely such a daub of words, or to
grapple with such a wind of contradictions! It
becomes our duty, however, aa free journalists, to
perform an office which our contemporaries over the
water will certainly be spared, and to reduce this
towering Imperial talk to the proportions of
simple truth.
The present session is the last of the second
Legislative Corps, so the EMPEROR begins and
ends his Speech with a graceful compliment to
their tried and trusted devotion. It would have
been ungrateful to such a Chamber, he declares,
to have dissolved it before the appointed term of
its labours. This compliment derives an added
pungency from the notorious fact that nine months
ago, before the turn of the Imperial policy on
the Roman question, the act of " ingratitude "
and " distrust " was on the point of commission ;
and that if the decree of dissolution was
not actually signed, M. DE PEHATONY'S pre-
parations for the construction of a new
Legislative Corps were all but complete.
Nor does the EMPEROR simply take credit for
his unfaltering confidence in the Deputies who
were trembling on the verge of dissolution last year.
He compares the stability of the " masses," upon
whose will the Empire reposes, with the " mobility "
of the limited number of electors of former days,
who somehow or other, although not a quarter of a
million in number, were not insensible to the
variations of the political atmosphere. Universal
suffrage, as it is administered under the Empire,
is distinguished, it seems, like death, by an absence
of " mobility." We know not whether it is
equally incapable of corruption.
An ingenuous public cannot fail to note the kindly
care and good fellowship with which the EMPEROR in-
vites the Senators and Deputies to a retrospect of
their mutual labours during the last few years. It is
to " what we have done together" that he points
the retiring looks of these important men. It is a
common folly, he remarks, to imagine that sove-
reigns sometimes act from hidden motives.
The true secret of Imperialism is that unabashed
honesty which defies all the calculations of ordi-
nary statesmanship. The policy of the EMPEROR
is nothing more or less than to augment the pros-
perity and moral ascendancy of France. Let us
observe, then, this very simple policy in action.,
Abroad, it favours the legitimate aspirations of
peoples within the limits of treaties. For example,
it drives the Austrians out of Lombardy and
annexes Nice and Savoy within the limits of the
Treaties of 1815, and encourages the legitimate
aspirations of the Romans and of Italy by the occu-
pation of Rome and the maintenance of the
Temporal Power. Again, by its consistent and
straightforward dealing with the Mexican question,
it " removes from diplomacy questions that have
" been long in litigation, so as to take away
" all pretexts for misunderstanding." It do-
fended the independence of Italy, but never
tampered with revolution, not even when
it summoned all the Italians to be " soldiers
" to-day that they might be the citizens of •
" great country to-morrow," or when GARIBALDI
was opening the campaign of 1859 at the head of
his volunteers. The HOLY FATHER was not " aban-
" cloned " at Castelfidardo, and the Austrians were
but the enemies "of a day." The ephemeral nature
of Imperial hostility will, perhaps, account to Italy
for the desertion of a cause when a c3rtain amount
of glory had been won, and the cleim of • couple
of provinces established. The causes which might

have given rise to disputes with Spain have been
suppressed ; except, by the bye, a "cause " which
is now being hotly debated in the Spanish Parlia-
ment—the cause of Spanish honour in Mexico.
The little difficulty with Switzerland has been got
over, with a due respect for treaties. Duty,
however, the EMPEROR reminds his Deputies, and
interest, are apt to clash. Thus it is with glory
and aggrandisement on the one hand, and " moral
" ascendancy " on the other. The withdrawal from
diplomacy of every pretext for misunderstanding
cannot be effected " without occasioning some
" complications," such as the occupation of Rome
and the invasion of Mexico, in order to
favour the legitimate aspirations of the peoples
in the Old World and the New towards a better
future. This frank and honest policy has conci-
liated the sympathy of the peoples with tho esteem
of Governments. The sympathy of the English,
Italian, Swiss, and German, Spanish and Mexican
peoples, is combined with the esteem of the
Governments of Turin, Geneva, Vienna, Madrid,
and Mexico. The moral ascendancy of the
Second Empire is conspicuous at the present
moment in the South and East of Europe. Such
are the facts of a policy that respects rights and
treaties, and encourages the aspirations of the
peoples. Senators and Deputies will recognise, "in
" spite of conflicting events," the "firmness" which
declared the Empire was peace, and has been at
war ever since—the firmness of policy towards
Italy and the Court of Rome, and towards the
Mexican Government and people. The
Mexican and Cochin-Chinese expeditions re-
solve themselves into the " honour of France"
avenged. In Mexico that honour takes the form
of Jecker Bonds, negotiable in Paris. The con-
quest of six provinces of Cochin-China opens up
an immense country to that colonizing activity
which has done so much for Algeria. Altogether
this account of the foreign policy of the Empire
teaches us how to secure the sympathies of
peoples and the esteem of governments
in a surprising manner. Only it demands the
style of a Luirrniorrivizitz, with its finely balanced
accentuation' and its admirable science of har-
mony, to do it equal justice on both sides.
Turning to home affairs, the EMPEROR reminds
his Senators and Deputies that in order to increase
their importance he had called on them to take a more
directpartinthe management of affairs. Hellas "sur-
rounded " thoirdeliberations—notashe surrounded
a National Assembly one memorable morning—
but with all the guarantees of free discussion,
especially in favour of the independent opposition
of Five. He has given up the prerogative,
" hitherto considered indispensable," of de-
creeing extraordinary credits, and now permits
the Deputies themselves to vote supplementary
credits instead—an obvious relief to the taxpayers.
The finances of the Empire would be quite pros-
perous but for the American war, though, accord-
ing to M. FOOLD'S Report, it was the Mexican war
that was made to bear the brunt of the
deficit. For the distress in the Department of
the Lower Seine an extraordinary credit will
be asked for, and if report speaks true,
the Second Providence in person is to descend upon
the poor starving workmen with twelve millions of
francs in his hands, thus giving the " masses " at
once an example of self-reliance and a touching
evidence of " what we have done together." The
attempt at mediation in America, inspired by Mr.
Sumas, and by a sincere sympathy with North
and South, is deferred to a more convenient op-
portunity ; perhaps till the completion of the cam-
paign in Mexico.
The concluding words of the Speech to the
Chambers betray a certain uneasiness, which
may be detected also in that awkward
mention of the Danubian Principalities, whose
union the Imperial Government had "con-
" tributed to cement," while the union of the
Italian provinces it was " contributing" to
pull to pieces. The Deputies are gratefully

recommended to tell their fellow-citizens to send
back to the Chamber men like themselves; and
the labour of love their successors will have to
perform is to avoid conflicts, accept the present
regime without reserve, and fortify the constitu-
tion which the present Deputies, who have sat five
years only, are informed is their own work. The
Deputies who heard this should have short
memories, and so should France.