The Express.
London, England, 1851-11-06 00:00:00

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r, THURSDAY. NOVEMBER G.

Tsar chief, if not the only, portion of the message
of the French PRESIDENT, which commands univer-
sal interest and attention, is that in which he pro-
to abrogate the law of the 314 of May, 1530.
pro-
}poser is neither more nor less than the conserva-
tive charter. The revolution of 1448 opened the
sluices of power to the popular torrent.
The artisans and the working classes com-
posed the indubitable majority of electors, both for
the legislature and the executive, and with how little
selfishness and astuteness they exercised it, if tands on
record in the composition of the National Assembly
and in the choice of the PRESIDENT. But popular wis-
dom, it wu feared, could not last ; and it was con-
alder( d safest to exclude from the franchise the very
electors who had returned a conservative assembly

and a princely president.
The opportunity was taken immediately after the
Paris election of 1450. The metropolitan voters then
returned M. DE FLOTTE and M. Sur. The one was
an insurgent of June, the other a philosophic social-
ist. M. declared, that in consequence of the
return of these two members, the Assembly was
bound to revise the electoral law. This was pre-
chicly the same as if M. I,EDer-Itneux had moved,
that because M. Ttueßs avowed his aversion to the
republican form of government, a law should be
pawed prohibiting all who had been functionaries or
mini-teem, from serving as members of the legisla-
ture. One was just as logical as the other.
The opportunity, however, was too good to be lost.
And a project of law was got up, examined, re-
ported and passed, which, in fact, disinherited and
disfranchised the entire of the working classes, and
handed over their electoral rights and influence into
the band of the government and of the middle class.
In order fully to render this intelligible, let us con-
sider what was the nature, and is the result, of the
obnoxious measure. The law of the 31st of May,
POO. is in fact n I iw of household or rating suffrage,
substituted for the law of universal suffrage, which
formed the groat basis of the republican constitution
of 1,111. It is much more restrictive than a rating
suffrage would he with us.
By the law of the 31st of May, no man is entitled
to exercise the franchise unless he can prove himself
to have had a domicile fur three years in one given
district. In the first place, this mere condition of a
domicile for so tome a period excludes the young, the
active, the adventurous, altogether from the electoral
urn. The artisans who crowd from country to town
never obtain a three years' fixed domicile till they
marry, and that is late in life.
Those who hare nut a domicile of their own, but
who, as workmen, servants, sons, or clerks, inhabit the
household or annexed buildings of a master, may en-
joy the franchise, but only on their master or parent
civilising to come forward to procure it fur them.
Here are two large classes eliminated from the
suffrage. Still there would remain household suf-
frage for persons of three years' fixed residence, but
for another quirk in the } rcnch law. According to
it, there is but one way of proving a domicile—that
of having paid in it the personal or furniture tax.
The mode in a hid' this tax is levied is as follows
total amount being fixed, it is distributed
between the different departments and corn-
wines, and a certain quota assigned to each, ac-
cording to their popu ation and property. 'l'his
quota is agaiu distributed amongst the inhabitants
able to pay the tax ; and the distribution is made by
the mayur, a functionary completely in the hands of
government, and greedy for its honours. Louis
throuraim, in his message, boasts of having dis-
aimed hurtle five hundred of them. The mayor may
exclude, from the list of ratepayers, and, of course,
from the electoral lists, whomsoever he pleaacee And,
as a rule, if any citizen or artisan has ever received
succour from a bureau it. bier faisance in hard times,
which is universally the case when a man has
nothing but. his earnings to depend on, and
when he is seized with sickness, this man is
always struck from the list of ratepayers.
Thus, in the Wiwi. moot iln Ford, a manufacturing
district, one-half of the adult mule population were
eeetuded from the rate-paying lists, mid would be, of
course. deprived of the franchise. We have a mime-
what similar case in our ten-pound householders, for
so many of whom the landlord undertakes to pay
the rates, charging the poor tenant in the mit, but
excluding him from the franchise. Supposing this
done, nut to save trouble and seek economy, but for
an organised political purpose of narrowing the
franchise, and you have the French law of May in
all its odium and its exclusiveness.
It is well known that great numbers of the dis-
franchised close, amounting, according to Louts
NAPOLEON, to three millions of men, hut which we
should say amount more nearly to five millions,
kayo determined not to submit to the law, and that

airy wpm w * general election, coming to the
bismithigs, erased, if necessary, and prepared to defy, by
their numbers, any force of military or police that
government could bring to prohibit the exercise of
what they deem their right.
In toning forward to propose the repeal of the
obnoxious law, LOUIS NAPOLEON has taken advan-
tage of the rumour, which he holds in terrnrenn up to
the conservatives, adding to it the assurance acquired
by his police of a general insurrection being organised
all over Europe.
We must confess that upon hearing that Loris
Nsientreist had determined to repeal the law of the
31st of May, and that he had dismissed his ministry
in order to form another favourable to so po-
pular a measure, we entertained hopes that
he had at length awakened to the necessity of a more
liberal policy, and that he was prepared to use con-
eihatory language towards the people. Ni. message,
however, undeceives ns. Its language is still that of
the policeman, not the statesman • of the terrorist,
not of the liberal. Even his proposal of abrogating
the law of May does not strike us as sincere. It
leaves the six months' domicile as a condition,
the mode of proving the domicile remaining
the same, which would not restore the dis-
franchised classes to their rights. Then he makes
the distinction betwevu the expediency of universal
suffrage for electing the members of the Assembly
and its necessity for choosing the head of the execu-
tive ; all of which sounds as if, were the broader
principle granted for his election, he would leave the
Assembly to be re-elected by the restricted franchise.
To procure a more enlarged constituency for himself,
and to obtain the repeal of the clause prohibiting
his election seems, in fact, to be the sole selfish aim
of the PREMENT. Ile is driving a bargain with
tho Assembly, cajoling and menacing its conserva-
tive majority almost in the same breath, and employ-
ing not even that outward respect fur the popular
and liberal side, which would be but decorous
in him, were it not also politic. On the whole,
Lot Is NAVOLEON'S message strikes us as calculated
neither to disarm a foe nor to make a friend.

GOVD will come of the St. Albans enquiry : of
that we may now be certain. The investigations of the
commissioners have not been confined to the miserable
dirty work done in the borough itself. or to the
hundred times told tale of back-rooms, accessible by
strange approaches, where some mysterious man sits
with money bags before him, and hands over to
every venal voter (after an interchange of ‘• sign
and word," as in mason lodges) the price of his
rascality. The commissioners have very properly
set themselves to detect the parties who trade whole-
sale in the corruption which has again and again
been proved to be manufactured for retai in St.
Albans, and hundreds of other boroughs. Convinced
that the only way to put a stop to any iUegul or
demoralising traffic is to close the market—that as
long as there are buyers offering a tempting
price, manufacturers and venders will be forth-
coming—they have directed their inquiry to
the exposure of those who have supplied the funds
by which the poor scoundrels in St. Albans have
been bought ; convinced that the same parties would
be found actively engaged in the same way in other
They have not been mistaken ; they have
=lylii.obtained a glimpse of one central Domdsniel