The Express.
London, England, 1867-01-21 00:00:00

THE NEW REFORMS IN ►RANCE.

In the form in which they are presented to us
the concessions announced in yesterday's Mositeur seem
to the Daily News little more than nominal. If the Em-
parer wished to diminish bis responsibility without lessen-
ing his power, some such scheme as that foreshadowed in
the imperial decree would answer this double purpose very
satisfactorily. The liberty of interpellation granted by
the Emperor is the liberty of petitioning to be allowed to
ask questions which nobody needs answer ; and
even this result is to be obtained only after
Yell arduous and critical exertions. No very
dangerous matter can be expected to filter through
the imperialist majorities of two committees in
the Senate and four committees in the legislative Body,
as well as through the chambers themselves. The im-
perial decree as it affects the press is open to much the
same criticism, for in the Correctional T,ibunal the govern-
ment will still continue to judge of offences through police
magistrates holding office during the pleasure of the chief of
the state. Sanguine expectations, therefore, must not be
formed of the value of the promised extension of the right
of public meeting. The measures, in short, when put
forward with such pretensions as accompany them, are
likely to embitter and to estrange rather than to conci-
liate. If this be all that liberals have to expect from the
Second Empire, it is vain to hope for their reconciliation
with it. Whether the change of internal organisation is
correlative to any modification or fresh development of
internal or external policy, cannot of course be more than
guessed at. The departments of the retiring ministers—
finance, war, and marine, and public works—may seem to
some significant. 31. Fould is understood to have always
advocated peace and retrenchment and to have opposed
the costly system of reconstruction which has immortalised
31. Hausmann. But it is perhaps gratuitous or premature
to see indications of a policy in his resignation.
The Herold says that though it is true the liberties
conceded are but small in themselves, yet they give to the
French Chambers all the powers that are practically
exercised by our own. The concession promised to the
press is an invaluable boon. Nevertheless, no one
imagines, the Herald says, that, for the present at least,
the French legislature will be any more than the pliant
and useful council of the Emperor, informing him of the
popular wishes, but opposing no obstinate resistance to his
own.

The Telegraph also regardithe reforms as gtted not only
to gratify the ardent wishes of all that is enlightened in
France, but to afford satisfaction to every admirer of free
institutions throughout Europe. So imperfect an application
of the principles of ministerial responsibility would never
suit us English; but, we suspect, the Emperor has correctly
gauged the popular opinion of his own countrymen in his
adaptation of the principle to France. To the senile and
empty professions of the Count de Chambonl the present
ruler of France replies by a proud assertion of his con&

dence in the French people, conveyed in the tangible form
of coneerdiene to popubir opinion, molt as no Bourbon
would been ever dared to make.

TRAI,2-`4' UNIONS.

After describing the judgment in the Queen's Bench, in
the case of a trades' union society, the particulars of which
have already appeared in our columns, the Times proceeds
to claim a general assent to the ruling of the court that
a voluntary association which usurps the functions of a
legislature is in that sense unlawful. At the same time
the necessity of a comprehensive enactment, putting an
end to the doubts entered by laayers on some other
points in the law of strikes, is beginning to be acknow-
ledged. Many difficulties have been found in construing
and applying the present law applicable to the practice of
trades' unions, and especially in determining how far it
supersedes the common law definition of conspiracy.
Sooner or later it will have to be revised, and when it is
revised parliament ought not to shrink from the duty of
grappling with the formidable subject of trades' unions
as a whole.

The Pat is greatly encouraged by an anti-trades-union
movement which, it says, is making considerable progress
in the northern counties, and asks why the London
operatives do not follow the example. If only few masters
united together to follow the Staveley example they would
soon be joined by the others in their trade, and other
trades would follow in their turn. If the men once had a
nucleus, or rallying point, to give them support, the move-
ment would soon extend in every direction.