The Express.
London, England, 1867-11-19 00:00:00

HIGH WATER AT LONDONBRIDOIL

Mg DA7:jaiors&7l7.2ll:::.:Alt;Wo;;, Th. 6912.
Tallioßzow—Yorniem lik. 11eva...--Aftenoon, tin. 2112,

LONDON, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19.

To be able, by the turn of a phrase, by a few
words more or less obscurely menacing, or vaguely
reassuring, to rally or to scare the confidence of all
the Exchanges of Europe, is perhaps, in a moral
sense, a prerogative of personal power scarcely
more exalted than that which may be exercised by
a dangerous lunatic at large, or even by one of
those unwelcome visitors from the jungle who
occasionally descend into the streets of Singa-
pore. In either of these cases it is not the power
of not doing any harm that is admired by the
trembling lookers on ; it is the capacity for
doing incalculable mischief. Without pro-
yoking disrespectful comparisons, we may take
leave to doubt whether it is the power which he
has always possessed of not disturbing the peace
of Europe, by remaining quietly at home and de-
veloping the domestic liberties of his subjects,
that has made the Emperor NAPOLEON'S annual
speeches to his Legislative Chambers documents
of such portentous interest and importance. Is it
not the fact that the composer and utterer of these
enigmatical commonplaces is for a while the
sole master and mover of the aggressive forces
of a great military nation, and the sole irre-
sponsible director of its destinies, that makes
nations and governments hang on his lips ?
There is nothing enviable or admirable in the
prestige of a country that has suffered itself to
become the instrument of such a power of per-
turbation. Unless we are greatly mistaken, it
is a power of which France is beginning to be
slammed and sick, and which is already conscious
of its own exhaustion.

The Speech which was delivered yesterday at
the Tuileries, compared with its predecessors, is
remarkable only for its laborious insipidity.
It breathes discouragement and lassitude in every
line. Its predecessors were empty enough in sense
to any one at all familiar with the Napoleonic
vocabulary ; but their emptiness was always
sonorous and emphatic. In the present Speech the
emphasis of sound is wanting ; the phrase falls
flat upon the ear, and seems to yawn from weari-
ness, as if the speaker were stifled by his mask.

In the paragraphs devoted to the Universal
Exhibition—a topic, it must be confessed, too
propitious to platitudes—there is a hollowness that
can be felt. After the experience of the Exhi-
bitions of 1851, 1855, 1862, after the Crimean,
the Italian, the German war, to tell a European
audience that the " momentary brilliance " of the
Exhibition of 1867 " has destroyed for ever a
" past of prejudices and of errors " is a shocking
want of respect for the average intelligence of the
pit and gallery. What "prejudices and errors"
has this Universal Exhibition destroyed for ever?
The British prejudice against horseflesh as an
article of food ? The prejudice of Frenchmen
against English beer or German cookery ? It has
brought multitudes of people from all countries
pleasantly together, and we should be very loth to
doubt that by a thousand indirect influences it has
contributed to the peace and progress of mankind.
But we cannot pretend that it haadestroyed the vices
of personal government or the prejudices of abso-
lute p.wer. Here, for instance, is an enlightened
Sovereign declaring that " free trade can alone
" secure supplies and lower prices," at the very
time when his Government is creating an artificial
price of bread, and pulling cities to pieces in order
to find work for idle hands to do. From the
Universal Exhibition the EMPEROR passes easily
and naturally to his project of law for the reor-
ganization of the army. Nobody will dispute the
justice of his remark that it is the duty of all
Governments "to follow progress independently
"of circumstances in all the elements which

" constitute the strength of a country."
France, however desirous of peace, cannot allow
tho organization of her armies and her arma-
ments to be surpassed by that of any of
her neighbours. This is a doctrine we English-
men are in the habit of preaching in Parlia-
ment and in the press with respect to our
navy : and the army is to France what the navy
is to England, with this essential difference, that
the army of France is, in the hands of a personal
Government, an aggressive force ; the navy of Eng-
land, under the control of a free Parliament, is a
defensive force. It speaks well for the revival
of a controlling public opinion among our neigh-
bours that the Emperor NAPOLEON withdraws that
Bill which would have compelled every adult
Frenchman to serve as a soldier, and raised tho
army on a peace footing to the strength of twelve
hundred thousand men. He now proposes a mea-
sure which will be a simple modification of the
law of 1832, and combine a reduction of
the military forces in peace time with the
machinery for increasing it expeditiously
and effectively in case of war. The criticisms of
Generals TROCHE and CHANGARNIEK and of the
Due D'Aumetc, and the strong moral resistance of
the rural population to the original project, have
resulted in this change of the EMPEROR'S plans,
and induced him to submit them, and the " great
" and contradictory interests" which they affect, to
the further consideration of the Legislature. What
he calls " the patriotic idea that the stronger we
" shall be the more certain will be the assurance

"of peace" is only half a fallacy, since in the
existing state of international relations it
is weakness, as in the case of Italy, that
invites attack. But it is only half a truth to
pretend that the more combustibles are accumu-
lated in Europe the less is the chance of a general
conflagration. It may be " the imperious duty"
of the Second Empire to test its new arms of
precision on the body of an ally, but such expe-
riments make a cruel rhapsody of your " incon-
" testable pledges of concord." And by an unfortu-
nate arrangement, it is poor Italy that succeeds the
army reorganization bill in the EMPEROR'S Speech.
He pays " the revolutionary agitation" in that
country the compliment of confessing that it was
" prepared in broad daylight," which dietin-