The Express.
London, England, 1867-12-13 00:00:00

HOLBORN.

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LONDON, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 13.

THE semi-official organs of the French Govern-
ment have been instructed to deny the rumours
of what in parliamentary countries would be
called a ministerial crisis. These rumours have
found credence, however, in Paris, in political
society, and even in the Sallee des Pas Perdue.
There is at least a conjectural probability of their
truth, which the authorized denials of the Patric
will help to confirm. M. DE MOUNTIE; the
Minister of Foreign Affairs, could not but feel
his dignity and consideration diminished when,
after committing to paper a aeries of cautious and
temporizing replies to the interpellations of the
clerical party, and speaking in most guarded
and discreet terms from notes which had received
the last revising touches from the Master's hand,
he found himself and all his studied reti-
oences and evasive assurances swept away
and submerged by the vehement and
reckless rhetoric of the Minister of State.
What might well make an honest and high-spirited
gentleman like M. DR MOUKTIER more sensitive
to such an unexpected humiliation was the con-
sciousness that his own personal sentiments far
exceeded his instructions in behalf of the Tem-
poral Power, while M. ROUIIEZ had on former
occasions employed all the thunder and lightning of
his eloquence in behalf of the Kingdom of Italy
rather than of the Court of Rome. M. DE
MOUBTIER, too, had charge of the preliminaries
of the Conference, and M. Rounr.a struck the
Conference dead on the spot.
Conceive, par impoesible, an English Foreign
Minister replying in the House of Commons to a
question on some particularly grave and delicate
affair of state policy with all the circumspection
which a sense of responsibility commands. Half
an hour later, in the House of Lords, he is com-
mitted by the Premier to an expedition, a war,
the rupture of an alliance, an intervention, a posi-
tive course of action of some kind or other, from
which it would be impossible for the Cabinet to
recede without dishonour, and impossible for
himself to accept without discredit. To
say that he would instantly resign is nothing.
His resignation would not suffice to save so rash a
Premier and so disorderly a Cabinet from the in-
dignation of the Commons and the country. But
French Imperialism orders these things very dif-
ferently. Neither the Minister of State nor the
Foreign Minister being responsible, except to the
EMPEROR, the greater absolves the less, and the
self-love of one Minister is a very trifling sacrifice.
The EMPEROR pays a handsome compliment to the
Foreign Minister, and assures him " he has spoken
" like a nobleman ;" but he accepts the excuses
of his Minister of State for having perhaps trans-
gressed the bounds of strict discretion in order to
overcome the sullen impatience of an exacting and
unmanageble majority. To English ooservers this
strange mixture of personal and parliamentary go-
vernment appears to combine the defects and dis-
advantages of both ; the violence of the one and
the weakness of the other.

Nor does the confusion end here. Some of our
French contemporaries are actually pretending to
console themselves for the triumph of the clerical
party in the councils of the Government with the
vain dream of a restoration of parliamentary
government, because in passing to the order of the
day on Friday last, and extorting from M. ROUHER
an absolute declaration of future policy on the
Roman question, it was the majority that pos-
'eased the Government, and not the Government
that possessed the majority. If we could believe
that the writers who aCbct to find this comfort in
M. Rornza's escapade were not indulging in bitter
pleasantry, we should be astonished at such a con-
ception of the true conditions of parliamentary
government, and should regretfully conclude that
fifteen years of Imperialism had obliterated the
traditions of thirty-six years of freedom.
It maybe that in promising the majority that Italy
should never seize on Rome, and in ascending the tri-
bune a second time to emphasize this solemn declara-
tion and to insist that "Rome" meant all the present
territories of the Pore, M. Rouusa made him-
self the very humble henchman of MM. BEERYZR
and THIERN, and their legitimist and clerical fol-
lowers. It is said that M. Hornell. " entreated "
one of the leaders of the majority to desist from
referring the subject of the interpellations to the
Government, which would have implied distrust.
It seems clear that the majority, growing
more confident and more exacting as the Govern-
ment appeared more docile and compliant, were
dissatisfied with the Foreign Minister's explana-
tions, and that M. ROITHERN uncompromising
affirmations were absolutely " put into his mouth"
by his prompters. It is certain that M. num
had completely captivated the majority by the
seduction of his incomparable speaking, and'

dominated them by the prestige of his experience
and fame. He bad inspired an obsequious and
subservient body of mere placemen with some-
thing like a Parliamentary spirit, in spite of
themselves. Seeing and feeling this, M. Roca=
was betrayed by his own vanity as the Govern-
ment orator, by his passion for applause at any
cost, his jealousy of rivals, and probably by that
contagious emotion which the contact with an ex-
cited assembly communicates, and by the restless
apprehension of a moral if not a political defeat,
to utter these words in haste which his master
will repent at leisure. But it must be evident to
calm critics at a distance, that M. Bottles made
an enormous blunder even in Parliamentary
tactics. Suppose that the majority, not con-
tent with M. DE MOUSTIER'S statement, had
referred the subject of the interpellations
to the Government ; M. ROUHER would have
lost an opportunity of achieving another most
superfluous oratorical triumph, but the EMPEROR'S
Italian and Russian policy would remain uncom-
mitted and uncompromised. The Italian alliance
would not at this moment be as impossible as the
Conference. Under a parliamentaryconstitution, of
course, the majority might return to the attack, and
by a vote of want of confidence insist on a change of
policy. But wider the Imperial system, nothing
that the majority of the Legislative Body can do
in the exercise of their constitutional rights
reaches the discretion of the Chief of the State, or
touches his confidence in his Ministers—which is
all they need. For what is this terrible majority ?
No doubt, with perhaps half-a-dozen exceptions,
it is not Bonapartiat. Probably it is more legiti-
mist than Bonapartist, and, inasmuch as it repre-
sents the rural populations, more clerical than
legitimist. But before it is legitimist, or clerical,
or what not, it is a pure administrative
machine designed by the MINISTER of the
INTERIOR and executed by half -a - million
of functionaries. It is the creature of prefects,
sub-prefects, mayors, and juges de pair, all at the
disposal of the central power. How can such a
majority as this introduce parliamentary govern-
ment In the fifth year of its existence it may
wax fat and kick. But in the seventh, if not
sooner, it is sent back to its constituents—that is,
to the provincial functionaries. It is " called in "
to the administrative mint to be re-issued or not,
as the master may decide. What elements of
parliamentary government are to be found in such
a body ? No doubt it is the nature of all political
assemblies to assert themselves. But suppose the
Emperor NAPOLEON should suddenly discover that
a mock representative assembly is worse than
none, and should resolve to try his future with re-
sponsible Ministers and an independent Parliament,
tuid a free press, What would become of this legitimist
and clerical majority, which has just destroyed
his Italian alliance, and imposed upon him for ever
the protectorate of the Temporal Power Y Or
suppose even that the MINISTER of the INTERIOR
were ordered to support with the whole weight of
the Administration in all the rural districts (the
great centres of industry and intelligence can take
care of themselves) a set of anti-clerical candi-
dates ? We do not say that either of these suppo-
sitiona is a probability ; but the latter is at least
within the bounds of possibility. As matters
stand at present between the EMPEROR and his
legislative majority the only interesting problem
fur the impartial student appears to us to be
whether " master " or "man" is the greater dupe.

OUR CONTEMPORARIES.
(THIS DAY.)