The Express.
London, England, 1851-05-15 00:00:00

FRANCE.

PARIS. MONDAY EVENING.
I announced to you yesterday that Emile do
Girardin had demanded to intopellate the Minister
of the Interior on a telegraphic despatch sent to the
Landes, regarding the elections. This morning the
Press(' publishes the despatch at the head of its
columns, in enormous type. It is as follows :

- -
The Minister of the Interior to the Prefect of the Landes.
In presence of the manieuvres which the advanced oppo-
sition direct against the law of May 31, IMO, you are to
declare, and to cause to be declared by the sub-prefects,
that, iu the opinion of the government, the electors, friends
of order, cannot, in consulting the interest of the country,
give their votes to any candidate but ono who is very de-
cided to maintain the chador:4l law of the 31st May.
N.B. The party of order supports unanimously General
Durrieu, the onl)• candidate who has declared in arour of
maintaining the law of May.

This despatch is undeniably of immense import-
ance at a moment when the Onottitutionnel has
turned against the law of May. If M. Faucher con-
tinues in the cabinet it seems impossible to attribute
to the President an arriere-petoe, against the law of
May; yet his private friends affirm that he is
opposed to that law. It is impossible to carry a
double-faced policy further.
The following semi-ottitsial explanation appears in
the Bulletin de Paris respecting the above despatch:
Certain journals seek to bring into great importance a
telegraphic despatch addressed by the Minister of the Inte-
rior to the Prefect of the Lamle., and which the l'resae of
to-day publishes in large letters at the head of its columns.
The following is the truth with regard to this dispatch :
The Minister of the Interior, informed that demagogues
agitated the department of the Landes, and endea-
voured their utmost to excite the jamulatioa against thu
law of May 31, in relation to the election about to take place
in that department, wrote to the prefect, as was his right
and duty to do, that, since the demagogic had hoisted the
flag of universal and unlimited suffrage (as it did in Paris,
on the 13th June, two years ago), the party of order should
rally round that of the law of the 31st May. As to the
candidates, the minister declared that he intended to remain
neutral between M. Duclere and Gen. Durrieu.
The telegraphic despatch has nut been published by any
of the agents of government. But, one of the sub-prefecta
of the Landes having communicated it to several persons,
one of those persons has copied, and had it printed, adding
the posteript.
There will be seen in all these facts nothing but what
is very simple and very natural. But the spirit of party,
in order to gain its ends, is foreeil to agitate the masses, and
to transform into crimes the must loyal and most natural
actions.

Without needing, to accompany the Presse in the
hard-hitting which it deals at the Minister of the
Interior for this meddling with the freedom of
election, ono cannot but regret that a statesman
animated by the upright intentions of M. Faucher
should place himself, through an excess of zeal, in
positions impossible to approve or to defend. It
mast be remembered that the law of May was passed
at a 'moment of panic, when the triumph of the
socialists in the Paris elections made people tremble
for the foundations of society. The law since that
time has gradually been losing ground, both in the
Assembly and in the country, in proportion as the
exaggerated terrors of the red republic, prevailing
through universal suffrage, faded. In the meantime
these terrors have been replaced by apprehensions of
another kind, that the socialists may prevail, by the
dissensions of the party of order, through force. But
they offer to disarm if the law of May be repealed ;
and their offer is beginning to be listened to very
extensively throughout the country, as is in fact
proved by the most extensively circulated newspaper
in France, the Cunstitutionnel, pronouncing in favour
of repeal. Hence, if there was ever a moment when
a calm and deliberate attitude on this question was
becoming to the government, and when the turning
tido of public opinion imposed peculiar caution and
delicacy on a minister, it is the present, in which M.
Faucher seizes the first opening to make an exhibi-
tion of uncompromising zeal in favour of a law
which is fast becoming doomed. A law must stand
or fall by its merits; its fate is in the hands of the
legislative power. Now, if there is a sensible article
in the much abused constitution, it is that which
says " the separation of the powers is the first con-
dition of a free government." Nothing, therefore,
can be more unconstitutional than for the
executive to dictate the choice to the electors,
or to bolster up, by electoral manoeuvres,
• measure whose fate lies m the hands of the legis-
lature. Electors of all shades will regard it as an in-
tolerable piece of meddling and presumption for the
government to dictate to them, by the mouths of pre-
fects and imb-prefects, what is their duty in the exer-
cise of the right of franchise. Scarcely less objec-
tionable is a practice, which many letters from various
departments prove to be general, of employing
agents of the public force to collect signatures to
petitions for the prolongation of the President's
powers. The Teeozedlook of such a proceeding is bed.
A man with a hat and sabre has no business