The Express.
London, England, 1853-02-10 00:00:00

THE WAR ON THE PRESS.

PARIS, Ter soar EVBNING.
It is evident that with regard to the arrests of
Sunday there has been much wavering in the coun-
sels et the government. There is every reason to
think that the first intention was to strike terror
into the salons of tho faubourg St. Germain. Some
people fancy it was intended to make a counter de-
monstration, by way of response, to the rejection of
the senators de Crousheille and Delarnane, as presi-
dents of the Union and Jockey Clubs. At all events
it is clear that there is now a disposition to make
light of the matter, which did not exist from the
first. The Patrie is instructed to say that all the
reports about the discovery of a conspiracy are false,
and that notwithstanding the Exaggerated stories in
circulation, the number of musts were 16 only.
M. Granicr de Cassagnac, in the CMtstitalanmel,
says that the persons arrested are outside
journalists, who write in ettys and public-
houses, in a style alike disgraceful to the,
country from the badness of their French, and the
indecency of their language. The Pays takes pre-
cisely
the same tone. Now among these miserable'
journalists—these " journalistes marrons," as M.
Cassagnac calls them—are M. Tanski, of the BAats,
who I happen to know dined with Count Walewski
the day before he was arrested, the Duke de Rovigo,
Count do Cosalogon, a member of one of the oldest
noble families in France, M. Page:a-Deport, of the
Union, and MM. de Villemessant and Virmaitre,
both polished gentlemen. So much for the ignoble
quality of the writers arrested. But although I
yesterday stated that General de St. Priest had been
arrested by mistake, I am now certain that this
report wits circulated by the police in order to con-
ceal the original intention. General de St. Priest,
a French viscount, a duke and a grandee of Spain,
was taken to the Mazas prison between six
and seven in the morning, and detained
there till six in the evening. lii the mean-
time his house was searched, all his papers turned
topsy-turvy and read with tho greatest care. There
was therefore no mistake. The Duke of Itovigo and
Count Miraband, and some other of the prisoners
bearing the most aristocratic names, were all released
at the same time, and now the public is called upon to
believe that " miserable journalists" were, from the
first, the only object of the measure. The tiger-like
spring made on Sunday morning was probably the
result of a sudden uncontrollable burst of auger, rind
now the government is embarrassed to know what to
do with the prisoners. The press, generally, is afraid
to comment on the monstrous circumstances of these
arrests. The Asserablee, however, says with extra-
ordinary boldness:
In an article written a short time back by H. de la
Clueronnidre, which made some noise, he said that we
were not in Turkey. To arrest and imprison persons with-
out saying why, would be to give a contradiction to the as-
sertion made by that gentleman in the Pays. The Patrie
was mute on Sunday night ; the lionit.ar never said •
word yesterday morning. All that we can find is a vague
note on the subject in the semi-official Pays. (Here fol-
lows the short article from that journal which I sent over
yesterday.) This note has no official character ; it is not a
communique, and is not even signed. Without being de
sirens of making any unnecessary remark on this article,
we may be permitted to remark that we do not find in the
language thus used either the precision or the measure
which a government should always show in its communi-
cations. What are these foreign correspondences thus
mentioned, and of which the authors are sought for ? Base
they been published with or without signatures ? How
have the police been set on the trace of the persons who
gave them information ? But we have no question, to put.
The Moniteur surely will speak to-morrow. We arc nut in
Turkey.
M. E. do Girardin, in the evening edition of the
Presse just published, burst out into a vehement in-
vective against the reign of terror that prevails. He
says :
So, then, Messieurs Cassagnac and Cohen, the
Conseittitionnel and the Pays find it tout simple and
parfaitentent legitime. Well, then, if it has come to
this, we declare openly, and at whatever risk and
peril, that we find it neither lawful nor intelligible—
no, not even when it concerns the arrest of M. de
Saint Priest, who was one of the destroyers of uni-
' versal suffrage—the arrest of MM. Bone do Rovigo
' and De Coitlogeo, whose mark we were daily in
the columns of thelCorsaire—or the arrest of that
other correspondent of a Paris journal which, on the
2nd of December, falsely designated us to every de-
mocratic journal in France as instigators of the coup
d'etat. No, whether it concerns friends or enemies,
we do not find it quite a matter of course that neither
the inviolability of your household nor that of your cor-
respondence is held sacred, and that now no man can
prudently preserve a letter containing a secret, how-
ever precious it may be to keep, or sweet to read. The
liberty of correspondence is to the liberty of tho press
what liberty of thought is to liberty of speech. It is
an interior freedom. If we are no longer permitted
to say what we think, the moment is not far distant
when we shall be equally condemned for keeping
silence; the last of liberties, that of holding one's
tongue, will then disappear, no longer tolerated.
Was that liberty tolerated under tho Inquisition,
which burned, or under the Reign of Terror, which
guillotined ? If the government fears lithographic
correspondences, autographic letters, or the calum-
nies of foreign journals, let it apply the law to those
letters, let it interdict the calumnious journals. This
is the point at which the law of France stops ; it could
not go further if it would. But the experiment
is, it seems, to be made. Suspected correspondents
are imprisoned. Well, we shall see whether this
prevents calumny, sedition, defamation, injury, from
gliding into the accused foreign newspapers. Vain
thought! Unless you can compress, suppress, re-
press all that M printed in journals, written in
letters, spoken in drawing-rooms, nay, all that is
read in the silence. How deal with that ? lou
may suppress what I print, but you must establish
the scaffold and guillotine before you can suppress
what I think. One question is worth consideration,
and I put it seriously—lf we have not the liberty to
write confidentially that which we think conscien-
tiously, have we the liberty to think conscientiously
that which we may not wnte in confidence?
M. de Girardin also publishes the following letter,
addressed to himself by the son of a minister of
Charles X.:

Sunday Evening, Feb. 6.
Sir,—The police entered my house at S o'clock this morn-
ing. I was absent. Five police agents, who doubtless
came to arrest me, broke open all my locks, and went away
without finding any paper to compromise me. Will you,
sir, whose courage never fails, be so good as to make these
facts known, and receive the expre”iion of my most di.tiu-
guished sentiments? B. Ds CuixTELAuzu.
46, Rue de Seine.
The Dtl&af; speaks out upon the arrest of one of its
editors on the following article: " The Moniecur of this
morning states that the persons who have just been
arrested are known to have been connected with
secret agencies whose work was to address to foreign
journals false news respecting the state of France,
and to discredit the French government in the eyes
of Europe.' Among the persons arrested is M.
Joseph 'l'anski, who for several years has been
attached to the redaction of the Journal des Dt'hats.
M. Tanski, a Polish refugee, has been naturalised in

France for about ten years and served with distinc-
tion in Africa with the Foreign Legion, in which he
held the rank of captain. Proscribed, and without
means of subsistence, with no other resource than his
rare inteltigence and indefatigable activity, in view
of all the world, ho has created for himself au
honourable position in the Parisian press, which has
procured for him the acquaintance of the most emi-
nent and best considered men of all parties and
reyiines. In his collaboratory relations with us ho
has merited the esteem and affection of' all who know
him. The nobleness of his character, the moderation
of his temper, the sagacity of his political opinions,
suffice to defend him against the inculpation o. which
he iv the object. We therefore can have n‘i doubt
that the tribunals, whose duty it will be to pro-
nounce on his fate, will speedily restore him to liberty,
and to his numerous friends."

The Damsts adds that twenty persons were set at
liberty on Monday, and diet the remaining sixteen
were delivered over to be tried. This would give ;AI
as the number of those originally arrested.
In explanation of the large increase in the
amount of the aggregate deficits the financial re-
'port in the Moniteur explains that seventy-eight
millions were expended iu the operation of convert-
in,. the 5 per cents., of which 74 millions were paid
to*fundholders who did not accept the conversion,
and 4 millions for fractional sums to those who did.
The payment of these 78 millions being paid vv i!hout
a loan was equivalent to a reduction of the public
debt by that amount. In further extenuation of the
large amount of the floating debt it is observed that
on January 1, 1853, the treasury possessed 118 mil-
lions in bonds front railway companies, representing
the advances made by the state towards the con-
struction of their lines, and that although the rules
of finance require that hese bonds should appear to
the credit of the account of the year in which
they may be payable, they ought morally speaking to
be considered as credits appertaining to former
years, and to be deducted front the umount of the
floating debt. Twenty-seven millions secured by
these bonds are recoverable in 1853, and are in-
cluded as assets in the budget. Of the remaining
ninety-one millions a large amount is payable at a
short date. The report then alleges the standing
excuses for the large amount of the floating debt;
namely, that the greater part of it consists of money
which the government is bound by law to receive
and to find interest for; such as the funds of the
saving banks, those of public establishments, and the
, bank of depots and consiynatientr. The following
I state of the floating debt ou Feb. 1, 1853, is set forth
in the report •.

francs.
Baring banks
Funds belonging to Communes and
public establi.hm.nts 157,000,000
Bank of Dyers and Cunsegnativiss 40.00,00
Advances to Iteceivers-General G9 000,000
Funds of the Paris and Lyons Rail-
way Company
Bills.

$9,000,000

Trens:u ry
Sundries 24,U00,000

6.90,000,000 fr.
M. llincau contends that this amount is not too
large, 500 millions, or more than three-fourths of it,
belonging to the category of funds that the govern-
ment is obliged to receive. The abundance of money
at the disposal of the government from these sources
is so great that it has been obliged to check the
affluence of funds from other quarters. Then it has
succes.ively reduced the interest of treasury bills to
3,2, and per cent., and has recently reduced the
interest paid to receivers-general for their advances.
Some of the leading financial events of the past year
are thus enumerated :

Before terminating the examination of 1852, permit me,
Sire, to direct your attention to the results of some mea-
sures which belong to the financial history of this year.
I have just spoken of the most important—the conver-
sion of the o per cents. ; that measure was effected in the
most happy manner. In diminishing the annual charges
of the state, it, in addition, contributed to the reduc-
tion of the rate of interest; and these two results were
obtained without any embarrassment to the St' te, since
the reimbursements applied Vim amounted to only a small
sum, and without any injury to the holders of Bente,
as since the conversion has been effected, that is during the
last ten months, the Four-and-a-Half per Cents. have been
constantly higher than were the Five per Cents. at the
moment of their conversion. The privilege of the Bank of
France hue h en extended to 1867, and the Bank has been
authorised to lend money on railway shares and bonds.
The advances which it has made on these securities, at 3 per
cent. interset, have powerfully contributed to promote the
ectivity of business. The deity on pebble liquors has been
remodelled, the entrance duty being reduced one-half,
whilst the retail duty was augmented, and the tenth of the
Octroi duty suppressed. These modifications, which, whilst
augmenting the produce of the tax, had the advantage of
improving the manner in which the duty is levied, were
favourably received, and have had a happy result. The
saving arising from the union of the customs and the
iudi-
rect taxes has been employed in nmeliorating the latter
service, and these ameliorations, which have strengthened
the organisation of the personnel, will lead to an increase in
the revenue. The coinage of the new copper money has
commenced ; the perfection of its execution is much ad-
' mired, and is every where sought after.
The most interesting part of the report to French-
men is the concluding passage, which, if I under-
stand it rightly, conveys a distinct assurance that
the new taxes proposed last summer will be defini-
tively abandoned.
I have now terminated, Sire, the report which you or-
dered Inc to present to you. This report contains a faithful
account of the situation of the finances of the empire. This
situation, I repeat with confidence to your Majesty, is in
every respect satisfactory. France will be happy to learn
that, thanks to the development of the public fortune, and
to the increase of revenues which arises therefrom ;
thanks also to the economy which, in obedience to your
'orders, your government will effect in all the services and
all the expenses of the state—•he will not have, notwit hstand-
leg the great thine which have just been accomplished,
notwithstanding tne great public works which you execute,
new charges to submit to, new taxes to dread. This cer-
tainty will increase her gratitude for you, Sire, who have
saved her, and her confidence in the institutions you have
established.