The Express.
London, England, 1867-03-19 00:00:00

LONDON, TUESDAY EVENINO, MARCH 19, 1867.

TELEGRAPHIC INTELLIGENCE.

(arusza's namomsas.)
FRANCE.
THE LEGISLATIVE BODY.
PARIS, MAacB 18.
. . _

In to-day's sitting of the Legislative Body the
debate upon the interpolation of M. Thiers relative
to the foreign policy of the government was re-
sumed. M. Jules Fevre declared that France
ought to have prevented Italy from forming an
alliance with Prussia ; but the policy of France
had always failed in preciseness. " The speech of
the Emperor Napoleon at Auxerre," said M. Jules
Fevre, " signified a summons to Germany to give
us the Rhine. Our programme, which comprised
the maintenance of Austria in a grand position in
Germany, was openly violated, and to permit this
violation of our programme was a policy unworthy
of France. The ambition of Prussia knows no
bounds. The cause of the present situation of
affairs is the extinction of the Legislative Body by
the power of one man. At the present time we
ought to go to the limits of our rights. We ought
to repudiate all ides of annexation, but I would I
ask if the annexation of Belgium or Luxembourg
were offered us would it be accepted 1" M. Grainer
de Cassagnac then delivered a speech, in which he
said—" We must threaten no Power, but be
armed and await the course of events. We wish
for peace, if other Powers will have it so; for war,
if it be imposed upon us." M. Thiers then rose to
call the attention of the house to the present poli-
tical state of affairs in Europe. He said—" There
are three lines of policy open to France : First, a
policy of insinuation, which would make Europe
believe that when we speak of great agglomerations
we desire to increase our own territory. This
is the policy I should wish the government to rutin-
finish. I should like to see the formation of a
great conservative party in Europe, which should
prevent all spoliation. Secondly, a policy of con
tidence in our ruler. Thirdly, a policy of watch-
fulness, which would not necessarily cause a com-
plete reorganization of our army, but a new
organization of our military forces. The policy I
desire for France would be conservative abroad
and liberal at home." M. Rouher denied that there
was anything contradictory in the government bill
for the reorganization of the army and the state-
ment made by the government, that France is
secure under present circumstances. M. Rouher
then replied to the new criticism of M. Thiers on
the principle of nationality, and said "The govern-
ment does not think to impede abroad the principle
of the sovereignty of the people which it holds at
home. Universal suffrage sanctioned the imperial
government which was inaugurated on Dec. 2." M.
Thiers (interrupting M. Rouher) " Let us forget—"
(Loud interruptions and great excitement.) M.
ltouher continued to refute M. Thiers, and con-
cluded thus :—" What is required of us I War !
No one thinks of it. Violent annexations I No
one has proposed them. A policy of watchfulness ?
That is the policy of the government. Our isola-
tion has been mentioned. We will have no exclu-
sive alliances. To-day we will be the allies of
England ; to-morrow, of Prussia or Austria ; and
that not with the object of conquest, but to solve
by conciliatory diplomatic interference the various,
questions as they arise. We seek great means to
allay great storms."
The passing of the order of the day was then
agreed to by 21.9 against 43, and the sitting con-
cluded.

HUNGARY.
_ PES7II, M.Lactt 18.

In to-day's sitting of the Lower House of the
Hungarian Diet, Herr Militeis proposed the dis-
cussion of the report of the Hungarian and Croatian
committee, and the presentation of a petition to
his Majesty, praying for the speedy convocation
of the Croatian Diet, and the suspension of the cau-
tion of the patent for the reorganisation of the
army in Croatia. The government announcedthat
the Groszwardein, Klaussenburg, and lironstadt
Railway would be promoted, and that a bill would
be laid before the house to complete the entire
railway system throughout Hungary. Yesterday
afternoon the first ministerial council, under the
presidency of his Majesty the Emperor, was held ;
the council lasted four hours. In the evening his
Majesty visited the National Theatre, and was
most warmly received.

SWITZERLAND.
BERNE, MARCH IR.

The subscription to the Swiss Federal Loan of
12 millions of francs for the purpose of improving
the national arimunent was opened to-day. The
Federal Council declared to keep back six mil-
lions of the amount at par. For the six millions
left open to the public 12 millions were subscribed,
six of which it was offered to take at par, eleven at
98, and two at a lower figure.

RUSSIA.

BT. PETERSBURG, MARCH 18.

The Russian government has for the present re-
linquished its intention of selling the Moscow and
St. Petersburg Railway.

THE PARIS BOURSE.
PARIS, MARCH 18, 3.30 r.M.
The Bourse continues flat. Renter closed at
69.20, or about the same as on Saturday.

AMERICA.
NT ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH.)
NEW YORE, lbacit 17.

The Senate has passed a supplement to the Re-
construction Bill, instructing the commanders of
the military districts in the South to take measures
for completing the registration of the voters by
September next, and to then cause an election to
be made in each State. The majority of the voters
thus registered are to decide whether a convention
should be held in order to form a constitution, to
be submitted to the people and to Congress.

NEW YORK, BUNCH 18, NOON.
-- _ _

The New York herald asserts that Mr. John-
son, in reply to a Fenian delegation who waited
upon him to ask for belligerent rights for the
Fenian', said he would give the question the moat
serious consideration, such as was necessary to
decide a matter of so great importance.
The Inman steamship City of Baltimore arrived
out on Saturday.
Opening prices : —Gold, 1341. Sterling ex-,
change on London, lust 5-20 United States
Bonds, 1091 ; Illinois, 1151; Erie, 59.

OSTRAL PALLat. turn Surrsurs
MONDAY, MATCH 18.—Adzobsious os p.yeuebt,33l; ditto,
by soma tanks% 323. Taial visitors. 669.

EXPRESS FROM PARIS.

(nog on OWN CORRINPONDINT.)
PARIS, MONDAY Emma

The France says that the Langrand-Dumunoeau
scheme relative to church property in Italy is
" entirely abandoned." This news, coming from
such a source, is important, because the juste
milieu party to which the France belongs has
hitherto represented that the Pope was disposed to
come to friendly terms with Italy on, the basis of
that project.

- -M. de Girardin, whale appeal was met down for
hearing on March 22, announces that, after mature
reflection, he has resolved not to go on with it for
three reasons. First, that after the presentation of
the new law abolishing the punishment of imprison-
ment for press misdemeanors, it would be morally
impossible for the public prosecutor to appeal d
minima, and, therefore, there is no peril to be
braved. Second, that inasmuch as he stands con-
demned to the maximum of the fine by the exist-
ing law it would be undignified and trivial to
attempt to get it reduced ; and, thirdly, that even
winning an acquittal, it would make. no change
in the painful determination which he has irrevo-
cably taken—meaning his determination to cut the
Emperor and all his relations. He begs publicly to
thank the eloquent, illustrious, and eminent coun-
sel who had spontaneously offered their services to
the " condemned of March 6."

j The Imperial Court, presided by First President
Devienne, has just reversed a judgment of the
Tribunal of Commerce, relating to the sale of M.
! Victor Hugo's " Travailleurs de la Mer." In
March, 1866, the appellant, M. Millaud, proprietor
lof the non-political journal Le Soled, made a coa-
-1 tract with M. Victor Hugo's publishers, MM.
Lacroix, Verbwckhoven, and Co., by virtue of
which he acquired the right to publish the " Tra-
vailleurs de la bier " as a serial in the fenilkton of
the &led, in consideration of 25,0001 r., of which
15,000 fr. was paid down and 10,000 fr. was to be
paid on April 30, and further a sum of 501 r. for
every thousand numbers of tho Soled contain-
ing the " Travailleurs de la Mer " over and
above the issue of 30,000 copies. MM. La-
croix and Co. at the same time covenanted nat to
sell any copy of the " Travailleurs de la Mer" (until
its publication in the Soleil was completed) under
the original price of 18fr. The success of M.
Millaud's speculation was at first very great,
and the circulation of the Soled rose to 49,000. But
on April 25 the Evinement (conducted by M. de
Villemesaant) announced that pursuant to an
arrangement made with MM. Lacroix and Co. it
was enabled to offer the three volumes of the
" Travailleurs de la Mer" as a premium to all sub-
scribers to the Erokemetd for six months. The
six months' subscription being only 22fr. it was
evident that MM. Lacroix and Co. must
have supplied copies of the " Travailleurs
de la Mer" to M. de Villemessant at a
price far below that of 18fr. Nevertheless, the
Tribunal of Commerce dismissed M. Millaud's
action against MM. Lacroix with costa, on the
ground that the discount allowed to M. de Ville-
moment for taking a certain number of copies did
not constitute a sale to the public at a lower price
than the stipulated one of 18fr., and that DIDI.
Lacroix had nothing to do with the terms on
which it suited the Ethiee‘eur to supply the work
to their subscribers. But the Appeal Court held
(most justly, as it appears to me) that the trans-
action was a mode of doing indirectly, and to the
prejudice of the appellant, that which the re-
spondents had covenanted expressly not to do. In
reversing the judgment the court ordered MM.
Lacroix to repay to M. Millaud the sum of 15,000 fr.
they had received ; and as a set-off for further
damages, declared DI. Millaud released from the
p►yment of the rest of the purchase money, 3131.
Lacroix to pay all costs, both of original hearing
and appeal.
The inflexible rule of the English Court of Chan-
cery that costs of an appeal are never given against
the judgment of the court below does not prevail
here ; and in this respect I think the French law
better than ours.

PARIS, SUNDAY EVVaNG.

The Emperor has in M. Rouher a minister
whose eloquence is worthy of the best parlia-
mentary times. His answer to M. Thiers reads
extremely well ; contains many " thoughts that
breathe and words that burn ;" and is plausible
enough not only to confirm wavering imperialists
in their faith, but even to make converts among
those who have not narrowly scrutinized the
course of events from day to day, and especially
lamong those who may not take the trouble to read
• the refutation of Ins sophistries by M. Jules
Fevre. When he says that Germany was very obsti-
nate iu desiring the acquisition of Holstein ; that the
Emperor, though honestly desirous to recommend
ithe strict execution of the treaty of 1852, which
defined the rights of the Danish crown, refused to
join England in a naval demonstration in the
Baltic unless England would promise to join him
in a war on the continent, which alone, in his
opinion, could be decisive ; when he would have it
supposed tlia:; it was only in the last extremity that
France proposed that the Seldeawig-Holstein
question should bo decided by an " appeal to the
populations ;" and when he said that the question
of German unity, though accidentally brought to a
head by the Danish question, would have come upon
the hyis, before long, on some other pretext ; and
that France, sincerely desirous of peace, had offered
her mediation after Sadowa, and so prevented the
Prussians from marching into Vienna, he makes
out a case which even an intelligent reader of the
class which pores over the Muniteur posted up on
the walls of the prefecture or the mayoralty, must
find it hard to answer. But M. Jules Fevre, in
the commencement of a speech which will be
finished to-morrow, sternly told M. Rouher
that all his excuses were nullified by
facts, by official French despatches, by the last
speech from the throne, and finally, by his own
admissions. It is true that Germany has long
aspired after unity, but the realisation of the aspi-
ration might have been long deferred. It is true
that the Schleswig-Holatein difficulty led to the
explosion, but it was entirely the fault, not to say
the express plotting, of the Emperor, which made
that question the occasion fur the war. In asking
England to join in a continental war against Prus-
sia the Emperor well knew he was making a proposal
that would not be accepted. In pretending that a
naval demonstration of England and France, which
Russia would have supported, would have been
insufficient to maintain the treaty in favour of
Denmark, he was nut sincere. The real object was
to retaliate upon England fur not having come into
the congress ho had proposed ; and to raise up a
state of things from which he hoped to get an ex-
tension of territory. The anguish" which M.
Randier admitted he felt, in common with all the
other ministers, on July 4, alter the battle of
Bedew& showed that the " satisfaction " expressed
in M. navalette's circular in September following,
and in the Imperial speech, was an afterthought,
and a bowing to sad necessity.
The Libertt says, at the conclusion of an article
in answer to M. Roaher's reply to M. Thiers,

(STAMP, 1&

" that the French government has not committed
a single fault."
The proof of this assertion is, that France, which
formerly furnished a contingent of 100,000 men only, will
now be drilled universally in the use of the needle-gun,
and that the human race in France will be bifurcated on a
new system of selection, all the able-bodied men being
taken for the army, and the infirm being left to continue
the species. This ingenious system, if applied to the
chevaline, bovine, or ovine races, would extinguish them
in the enures of ten years. What can be plainer than that
no fault has been committed ?

The Union de la Sarthe has received from a
French merchant in Mexico a letter containing the
following passage :
The professed object of the intervention was to pro-
tect our interests. Before the intervention Frenchmen
had no enemies in Mexico; all the natives, whether
liberals or moservatives, held out to them a friendly hand.
And now that the French army is about to retire, whether
having accomplished its mission or not, we are detested
by everybody ; and the only tabula in saufracio left to us
is the little bit of paper which gives all Frenchmen resid-
ing in Mexico the opportunity to go home with the French
army if they wish it.

The Amur National, commenting on the above,
says :—" It would be superfluous to dwell upon
this picture, so painfully accurate, of the situation
in which our countrymen have been placed by the
fatal Mexican expedition."
It is now announced that by the end of April
the last soldier of the Mexican army of occupation
will have returned to France. It was only so re-
cently as April, 180, that M. Rouher proudly said
in the Corps Legislatif that, come what might, the
army would not return without having fully '
achieved the purpose for which it went out. He, of
course, cannot say anything of the kind now, after
the notorious failure of the enterprise, admitted in
the speech from the throne. But publiccontidence in
M. Rouher's declarations, however clear, and posi-
tive, and eloquent, is necessarily shaken by the
Mexican mishap.

IHE NORTH GERMAN PARLIAMENT.

BERLIN, MAnca 18, EVEWIG.

In to-day's Bitting of the North German parlia-
ment, the debate upon the paragraphs of the draft of the
constitution commenced. (In Art. 1 being brought for-
ward for discussion, the Polish members handed in the
protest of which they had given notice against the incor-
poration of the former Polish territory into the North
Uernalui Confederation.

Count Illsn.incit spode against the protest, which he
said was directed, not against the North German Confede-
ration, but against the unity of Prussia, and ought there-
foie to be addressed to the l'russian Diet, and not to the
North German Parliament. Moreover (he said), the Polish
deputies were not authorised by their electors to bring in
such a protest, as toe majority of the Prunio-Polish popu-
lation were satisfied with their condition, especially the
peasants, who hail valiantly fought as Prussian soldiers
against Denmark and Austria. Only the nobility and
clergy of Poland carried on political agitation. Count
Bismarck proceeded to prove from official reports that
that the clew had threatened to refuse absolution to
those who voted for Delman deputies. "It is time," he
added, " that the higher clergy did their duty. The re-
storation of Poland is not to be thought of. A great por-
tion of the Polish population itself would not hear of such
a thing. Let the Polish deputies go hand inbaud with the
North German Confederation."

Upon the coucluhiou of Count Bismarck's speech the
deputies favourable to Denmark brought forward a pro-
test against the incorporation of North tichestrig with the
Confederation.

Thereupon Count BISMAIIK again rose and opposed this
protest in a speech in which he said :—" The Lmperor of
Austria alone has the right, by virtue of the Austro
Prussisn treaty, to require that a vote should be taken
in North Schleswig to determine the future position of the
northern districts of that duchy. It is a matter of small
importance for the power of the Prussian monarchy
whether a few Schleswigers who speak Danish belong to
Prussia or Denmark. The boundary line between the two
countries will be drawn in conformity with the interests of
Prussia. We don't intend to have to conquer Duppel
afresh. The portion of Seldeswig which wilt be ceded to
Denmark will, at all events, be smaller than people in
Copenhagen imagine. And before the cession is made an
understanding is necessary with Austria with reference to
certain timincial questions relating to the duchies. The
completion of the North German Confederation cannot
wait for the settlement of these questions."
Herr SCHILArs, the member for Dresden, then made a
speech, in which he asked that the relations of Luxem-
bourg and Limburg should be clearly defined in the draft of
the constitution.

Count Itisnaucit, in reply, stated that be was glad to
have an opportunity to contradict the rumours and calum-
nies spread by some newspapers on that subject. Prussia
has never threatened Holland. He said—" Before the
outbreak of the war, brief negotiations took place with
Holland, because we thought Luxembourg belonged to the
enemies of Prussia. It was agreed between Prussia and
Holland to abstain from all hostilities. We have neither
demanded our laid stress upon the connexion of Limburg
and Luxembourg, nor can we force the sovereign
of those duchies to loin the North Ger-
man Confederation. Limburg expressly desires
not to join it, and Luxembourg has not expressed any wish
either in favour of or against doing so. We shall put no
pressure upon Holland in that respect, since we might
otherwise evoke an European question," Count Bismarck,
at a subsequent stage of the discussion, endeavoured to
remove the apprehensions that Southern Germany might
enter into any understanding with foreign powers. The
relations between the south and north of Germany had
been enaured by treaty immediately after the conclusion
of peace. (Hear, hear.)
The FEDERAL COIMISSIONER for liDltiE made a speech
in which he expressed regret at the division of Hesse
Darmstadt by the line of the Maine. lie hoped that a
means would be discovered of effecting an arrangement
whereby this division of the Grand Duchy might be
mitigated and all Regan enjoy the benefits of the North
German Confederation.
The amendment of Herr Dockuni-Dollfs, and that in
reference to the Danish portion of Schleswig, were then
rejected. The amendment of Herr Von Carlowitz, con-
cerning the limits to the right of ceding German territory,
and stipulating that diplomatic representatives should
only be appointed Ly the !'resident of the Laud, was also
rejected by 115 against 113 votes, and Art. 1 of the draft
of the constitution was agreed to by a large majority.

THE RELATIONS BETWEEN ITALY AND ROME.—
Wo read in the ifoni(cur :—" A private telegram an-
nounces that Geueral Courten, after concerting with the
general in command of the Italian troopsdistributed along
the Roman frontier, has just taken energetic measures for
the suppression of the brigandage. It has been decided
that the Italian and Pontifical forces combine!, compelled
hitherto to stop upon the frontiers and abandon their
pursuit of the bands, may in future penetrate into their
respective territories." The Temps of yesterday says.—
" A deepatch announced yesterday that an arrangement
had been come to between Rome and Florence, so as to
allow the Italian and Pontifical commanders to pursue, if
necessary, upon the adjoining territory the bands of brigand.
who are desolating the frontiers of the two states. Advice*
to-day state that the Pope's government has just taken
another step in this path of reciprocal concessions. A
Pontifical decree suppresses tho transit dues upon goods
passing by railway over the Pontifical state, and at the
Name time exempts from the stamp and other customs
fonnalitieethe effects and luggage of travellers. It appears
that much pleasure is felt in Florence at seeing the iron
possunes thus give way, although the modification merely
bears upon questions of a very secondary order."
GARIBALDI AND TUE PRIESTS.—The Italie of
the 14th copies from a paper published at Legman the
following letter of Garibaldi :—" Owing, as a duty to my
conscience, to speak to the people of the priests—the
chief scourge of our country— I knew that I had to do
with the priests of deceit, and I was prepared at starting
for their jesuitical tricks. They have made use say that
all the newspapers of Italy are sold, and they have turned
all the periodical press against me. Yesterday I declared
this assertion to be false. To-day I repeat it, and I beg
my journalistic friends to be lees credulous in future on
the subject of the calumnies, of the black sect of which
I am proud to be the eneary.--O. UAILIIIALDL—Legnano,
March 10, 1867."
Bums Kassurorox Maszum.—Visitors during
the week ending March 16 :—On Monday, Tuesday,
and Saturday, free, from 10 mm. to 10 p.m.,
8,632 -, on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday (admin.
non 6d.), from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.. 1,169 ; total, 9,661.
Average of corresponding week in former yean, 10,775.
Total from the opening of the Museum, 6,593,181.