The Express.
London, England, 1867-02-15 00:00:00

THE SPEECH OP THE ESIPEROR NAPOLION.

The Times observes that the Emperor Napoleon
hail yesterday a most difficult speech to deliver. It was •
anfession of mishaps in hi, foreign policy ; a profession of
intended reforms in his home policy. He now makes a
candid acknowledgment that be has more than once been
,liaappointed in his expectations, and, like other crowned
heads, attributes the blame of his failure to supernatural
agency. Repeating the imperial version of the German and
Italian wars and the Mexican episode, and coming to the
second part of the speech, which is only a corollary to the
first, the Times attributes the Emperor's decision to grant
political liberty to his cousciousnem that the responsibility
is too great for him, and that, henceforth, the blame of
failure must not rest on him alone. He is now ready to
give up as much as the French are able and willing to ask
for. His confidence in himself is evidently shaken, and
there is hardly anything he would not grant for the sake
of free, warm, hearty support. There is hardly a measure
connected with either home or foreign policy about which
the Emperor has not lately given symptom. of uncertainty
and vacillation—witness the abandonment of his original
scheme for the re-organisation of the army. It is to be re-
gretted, however that he still connects huge armies with
progress, and does not see that the first condition of Euro-
penn advancement lies in an opposite course.
The Daily News regards the speech as another illustra-
tion of the Emperor's power of scene-painting—a gift ob-
servable in him in his early and adventurous days, and
which has served him well since he rose to that supreme and
solitary height of power in Europe, to which it is difficult
even for the eyes of men below to follow him, and from
which men below look no bigger than insects. The men-
tion in the speech, the Daily News proceeds to observe in
examining the various paragraphs, of the temporal power
and of possible dangers threatening it from demagogic
conspiracies, and of the probability that " Europe" would
not permit the accomplishment of an event which would
cause perturbation in the catholic world, is singularly, and
perhaps unfortunately, wanting in a meet desirable ambi.
guity. But it will scarcely persuade the Romans that the
temporal power is to be eternal, or that the French will
go back to Rome if they demand the secularisation of the
government and the Code Napoleon, or even to share their
temporal fortunes with their Italian brethren, leaving the
Holy Father to administer their spiritual interests. On
the relations of the Emperor with foreign powers in gene-
rail, the imperial speech is most reassuring ; but it is a
subject for wonder that a man so far in advance of his
brother sovereigns in ideas should for a moment and a
positing purpose appear to sanction the fallacy that an
enormous army is the most certain means of preventing
war.

The only allusion in the speech which, in the opinion of
the Post, is calculated to occasion uneasiness is that which
the Empeior makes to the reorganisation of the army. It
must, however, be admitted that the action of other States
justifies him in asking the French nation to increase its
military strength. . . .

. -
The Telegraph speaks of the speech in the favourable
tune with which it always adopt+ towards the imperial
policy. It thinks it perfectly clear that the Emperor is
resolutely bent on peace.