The Express.
London, England, 1851-12-20 00:00:00

LOUIS NAPOLEON AND THE MONEYED

The alleged acquiescence of the moneyed or
prop= class in Louts NAPOLEON'S usurpation
has ea much conversation. A distinction must be
be made between the frequenters of the Bourse and
the great merchants and manufacturers of France.
The latter are no doubt alarmed at the progress of
'social and communist doctrines among the proletary
classes. They long for a settled government, are
averse to universal suffrage, and are not disposed to
canvass too rigorously the tenure of any authority
which promises them peace and free industrial action.
But they expect nothing of the kind from Louis
NAPOLEON : on the contrary, they expect to find
him developing some peculiar financial and economi-
cal crotchets of his own. They look upon him as
ambitious to found his own peculiar school of
socialism. They see that he holds power by the
same title as the red republicans, and is likely to
exercise it for the same purpose as the communists.
They are a timid body ; it may be long before they
assume an attitude of avowed hostility and opposition ;
but they neither wish to see his government perma-
nent nor believe that it can be so.
It is a very different matter with a numerous and
influential circle of the mere money dealers. Even
in England here we have a tolerable number of this
class whose business it is to speculate in unsound
undertakings, relying upon their dexterity in shift-
ing the risk and burden upon others, when a bubble
enterprise is about to break down ; to deal in " time
bargains" in the public and other securities; and to
mix up opera and kindred speculations with the more
legitimate transactions of commerce. Every now
and then light is thrown upon the proceedings of
this class in the bankruptcy courts; and at
the recurrence of a joint-stock company, a joint-
stock bank, or a railway mania, trey come out
from their lurking places in alarming numbers.
But, in this country, where legitimate coin-
' mercial and manufacturing enterprise by its
full development gives the law to the money
market, this class is kept within safe bounds. In
Paris it is much more numerous and influential. Its
members are the legitimate deseendauts of the asso-
ciates of Mississippi Law, and the agents of the
fermiers g,,nirraux. They arc more conversant with
dealings with improvident and spendthrift govern-
ments and with bubble speculations than with com-
mercial transactions. And the imperfectly developed
trade and manufacturing industry of France offers
them a more restricted field of legitimate monetary
transactions. The frequenter of the Bourse and the
regular gambler with his opera connexions, are less
maikcdly disassociated in France than in England.
Now the liaisons between the Elysee and this
disreputable or equivocal portion cf the monied
classes is notorious ; and their active com-
plicitly in the enterprise of Louis NAPOLEON
is rendered at least probable by the state of the
French funds since his coup Herat. But though
weak and wicked governments have often derived
temporary aid in France from such allies, no per-
manent tenure of power has ever been ensured by
their aid.
The career that lies before Louis NAPOLEON is as
clearly defined for him at this moment as if he had
actually run through it. His organ, the Condit's-
tionnel, declares that he reigns in right of " the vote
and the sabre." 'rhe proportion of the political cle-
ment to the military in this combination is somewhat
like ilitstaft half-penny worth of bread to his
gallons of suck. The instruments and councillors of
LOUIS NAPOLEON are the army ; his financial mini-
sters must be the unscrupulous stock-jobbers. So
long as there is money in the country his specula-
tors at the Bourse will be able to get him a share of
it; but with trade and manufactures languishing,
how long will that be? And as for the army,
"point trargent, point de Suisse,"
Louis NAPOLEON knows that he has no support
but the army. His appeal to the electors is a bare-
faced farce. lie calls upon them not to decide by
their votes who is to he President, but to declare
whether he or nobody is to be President. And us for
the election of the legislature, all the leading politi-
cians are either mewed up in prison, or at large on
the understanding that lie may send them back as
soon as it suits his convenience. What guarantee
has any opposition candidate that he may not be
sent to pr eon if lie has the slightest chance of being
elected. And what is a legislature without news-
papers? There are sixteen subscribers in Prussia to
the official reports of the proceedings in the Chambers.
Without newspapers there can be no publicity for
parliamentary debate, and without publicity debates
are useless. The imprisonment of journalists and par-
liamentary leaders with which Loris NstroLEost has
begun, must be persevered in if he would retain
power. The moment these men are set at liberty
they will resume their vocation, and the manner in
which he has treated them shows his consciousness
that either he or they must be put down.
The seeming strength of the ex-President is illu-
sory or transitory. It is the image of NEM:CHAD.
SUZARN dream—the clay and brass bearing a most
disproportionate ratio to the rest of the compound.
The contest in which he has engaged is one of brute
force against ideas ; of the ultimate result of such a
contest in a nation so vivacious and so intelligent as
Prance there can be no doubt.