The Express.
London, England, 1859-08-19 00:00:00

ring'', but never called in question, except by same
dirk conspiracy or frantic outbreak. This amsenty
Decree, however, had in fact became an act of
simple decency on the part of a Government which

was recommending mercy and justice at Maple*
and was not the weed " amnesty" written in the
draft of Peace at Marranea ? Full of hops and
premise, then, es it eartalnly is, we shall do well to
asoderrate our terms of eulogy, so long at least ea the
operation of regalar and equal law is not reesta-
blished, nor arbitrary measures of exception and
violence put an end to, in France, by the band that
signed the amnesty. The amnesty has been
followed by enact of favour to the press, which may
signify very little, or much more than appears on
the face of it. AU warnings which have been given
to the public journals are to be considered as nulL
We are not in possession of the penal sta-
tistics of the French pram I but we have a suspicion
that one of the last of the Parisian journals to sus-
tain a warning was no other than oar Christian
friend the Nicer s, upon whom " warnings" sit as
lightly as mercies disguised. The Ultramontane
organ has rioted in license when all the rest of its
contemporaries were sinking for want of a breath of
liberty ; and we may be sure that any general re-
mission of political sins will be rather a lose than a
gain to that organ of the sacristy, because under a
system of secular repression it alone was never
really in danger. This secondary amnesty to the
press is not, we fear, a subject for very loud congra-
talations. It no more amounts to what we call
liberty of the press than the proceedings on a
Monday morning at our metropolitan police of
tea gaol debt ery. It is a partial, occasional, and
Incidental favour, welcome enough so far as it goes,
bet indicating nothing like a change of regions.
Indeed, if we are not mistaken, the administrative
section of the press has just received a new and ;defi-
nitive organisation, and though the "warnings" may
be fewer under the gentle sway of that ancient re-
publican journalist, M. DI is Oralomeianc, it does
not follow that the quiet pressure upon the stops
will be less of than before in the bends
of so experienced an organist. How heartily all
journalists, of all parties and opinions, on this side of
the Channel, must desire to see their brethren on the
opposite meat in the enjoyment of something like an
equal freedom, no one who understands the peaceful
influence" of an unrestricted intercommunion of
thought between two great nations can for a moment
doubt. It is no concern of ours to impress upon a
foreign Government the advantage of being able to
convince the world that it is not afraid of being dis-
reseed at home, end of meeting its rivals or its foes
in the broad daylight of opinion. The present ruler
of France is not one of those rulers who by nature
regard public opinion ea an ansreltical inven-
tion. It was to public opinion that he was con-
stantly appealing when he too was a journalist.
It is to public opinion that he professes to appeal
still. Only as an Emperor he never waits for an
answer. Six months of a free press and of regular
law would do more to strengthen the bases of his
dynasty, and to secure the respect and confidence of
Europe, than myriads of secret police and swarms of
drawing-room spies. In a country where individual
liberty is unsafe, and only official voices are permit-
ted to speak above a whisper, six hundred thousand
arguments cannot persuade the world that the best
of Emperors is anything but an accident.