The Express.
London, England, 1857-04-18 00:00:00

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LONDON; SATURDAY, APRIL 18.

The French have discovered that there is son.
thing the matter both with the foundation and the
the of their social and political edifice. A recent
aeon has informed their own public, and the Euro-
pe= world, that for the lest five years French
population has been all but stationary. On the other
bait the Enema and his Ministers have discovered
that a singular want of respect is shown for titles
el nobility : Those who are entitled to wear will
not wear them ; and those who have no right to do
-es seems them; and thus the coronets of duke, count,
lei baron are !raises dons to bow.
This latter catastrophe seems to Wee aided the
Imperial Government much more this the lb* frr
the Minister 'of Justice has been ordered to !wire
into it. Thereupon his Excellency, M. or CountAaaas-
Toom, has published a Report, and drawn up s bet,
which is under the consideration of the Comae(
State. The Minister is quite right. What ban
hereditary Emperor without en hereditary NI
respected melees* ? We would however, segued to
the Oceania Solon, M. Anatfeleort, that a crone ere
h a thing that must grow rather Sum le made. The
galy way to support a soffeser, and b make it
respected, is to allow it to render itself indeperlent,
sad lean it something to do as an independent Imity.
A notisses bile that which existed before the ben-
%dem, lisicTing Privilege*, and living tiN awe
parkas, whilst performing no dutise,lllthl new
mod the contrary of respect.
The ihnes, indeed, has been propovaileg nieds•
mint upon the state of France which well seen
sot to harmonise with this opinion. It attributes
the decline of French spirit and population to the
Bevelution of 1789; that naughty Revadien tha
ANIS away the rsobtesse, that dispelling( re
dew, that gave to the people the sou Sr
eraintry which they were previously prevented
Int wee cultivating as tenants by the dimes and
•• winks, and the weight of exclusive taxation.
II fie • *sage thing to reproach with a want of
esAwyehe a Revolution whose sons marched to Cadiz
and te Moscow, to the Pyramids and to Sweden,
and wham grandsons were by no means inferior to
es at the Malabo. the other day.
Eat the population? Well, the French are a mey
prudent people. They have small trait in Provi-
dence, and like to amide their future to themselies.
They seldom many without good nutty of
livelDeood, and when events disturb homes
misalations, and render life a lottery, the French
almtain hem marriage altogether. The statisticians
of Paris have been taxed to account for the stationary
more at whisk the population has arrived. They
have laboured to palliate and explain, but have
really mid nothing to the purpose. The hat *that
the Fresh an a people who will not increase
in numbers without ea increase of wealth. And
this resoles ems them infinite honour.
Mew, of late yeah, unfortunately, there has been
the inures= of wealth. There has been an infinity of
Ilaaahans, a *hit esewthint of many oat of the

pockets of all into the pocket ol the State. But of
real trade, productive industry, there bas been little ;
whilst of that frugality and eeesony which were
always the great sourest of Fan* accumulation,
there is infinitely km than SM. M. PROXIMO!'
his just published a book, in which he sets down
speculation as a awes of riches. And. as •
proof of hie seartiok be Who*" • lag or •
piece of fancy wood, my rosewood. The perchessr
hes acquired it at a small pries, bat as real as he
begins toplansoind polish it, lee disport(' that the
wood is worth not only inlnitely more than he paid
for it, bat more than he hoped or imagined. Here,
says M. Pantinnow, is an Inman of national wealth.
It so, law's ethane wee • mighty some of national
wealth. And M. Dit Honor or M. Minns are
monthly adding incalmilable riches to the natural
ones of France.
We an see no analogy between the rosewood
which if rendered Ulm valuable by the labour which
converts it into meg or sgresable articles, and the
sum of money which is made to multiply itself (in
appearance) by being made the exam for innume-
rable promises to pay." We differ altogether from
M. P101:DROW ; and. tutead of thinking Pianos the
richer for tiro kneypriess of ell things, we deem that
she has been grading taz man then her capital in
enterprise which, barren: inehl many of them may
Essay be, have stall interfered with the employment
d capital in industrial and in eommercial enterprise,
and subjected her te liabilities which she may find it
diScult to meet. The Vass, we think, need not
go back so far as to throw upon the Revolution of
1789 any prima lack of enteeprist in France. The
menontiosl and ial circumstances of the time
are quits sufkient to aocount for this, without bor-
rowing • leaf from the Legitimist's book of horrors,
end canting the blame of ill evil upon Revolution.
The materialposperity of a country and the de-
velopment of its yealth are seldom the vaults of
continuous program They rather advance by bounds,
or rise by steps. The Revelation of 1780 gave an
impulse to the prospeeity el France by throwing the
land open to her industry and her pope/ation. But
ell that could be done by the industry of • potent
population has been done. Another step is now
wanting--another stride must now be nob I lathat
is, the application of capital and skill w bad.
It would require far more than the lab or ma
article to describe the impediments Vida aliillllt
or retard this in France. But these in
the state or division of property in Frets =
vent its inhabitants from doing what the
have done, and of asides the soil a speculation Nin M. Pam:roma% owe), • foundation for the out-
lay of capital aid for the employment of skill,
instead of being a mare mei for men to live, like
work Ora the roots orthe crop that Nature

Nadi them.
It was a fortunate circumstance for England that,
when the time mama far seriously applying capital to
the land, she was shot oat heaths continent, and from
foreign speculation, and from a world of distraction,
so as to be able to turn to ae.coont the high prima of
provisions which rangedtluough so many years, and
which gave en ample return for the capital and skill
then lavished upon her soil. France has now had
the advantage, if she bad known how to nes it, of
several yeses of high priers; bat they have not
produced the outlay of an additional million of
francs to the land. On the contrary, loans and
speculation have drawn forth the little money that
used to collect in the rural district', and, of that
money, what was not spent in the Crimea has been
spent in the towns. The rural population of France
has followed the rural capital as it migrated, just as
sheep follow the shepherd. No other explanation is
needed of the deplacement of population demon-
strated in the recent French censer.
The Impala Government dose not mem alive to
either the canes or the remedy of the evil. It en-
courages loans for making Reed= railroads. It
approves and sets in execution project upon project
for fructifying the barren soils of the Lander or St.
Bologna. But when the best tracts of the country
produce no more than they did in the last century—
from the want of either still or capital applied to
them—of what use is it to sink millions in inferior
soils It is not the breadth of land that is wanting
in France; it is the intelligent cultivation of that
which has been for ages alternating between
the tallow and the plough. But the small
and peasant proprietor is in the way, it is
urged. And this small proprietor is the result
of the law partitioning property. Let the work
be begun of applying skill and capital to land;
and the large returns will soon make it the interest
of the small proprietor to let or sell. He cannot
long resist the overflow of capital upon the land.
His existence is an excuse for indolence, not a real
impediment to progress.
If the French Government would give an ow I
ward impulse to population, remove the limit and
restriction to it, it most be, we repeat, by the appli-
cation of capital and skill to agriculture. And if
the Earzion wants to found a noblesse, let him
!rave some local authority and dignity in the pro-
vinces other than the Prefect and the officials who
are subject to him. In order to have farmers, a
country must have landlords—landlords who reside
on their property and have a legitimate influence in
their district. The country may be said to have no
political existence in France ; it is inhabited exclu-
sively by functionaries and peasants. And all the
independence of the latter, without intelligence,
has not been able to preserve a political freedom.

WE observe with much satisfaction that an at- '
tempt has already been made to enforce that whole-
some provision of the " Corrupt Practices Preven-
tion Act" which defines and punishes the offence of
undue influence at elections. Our readers ere pro-
bably aware of the general nature of the dame re-
ferred to. We need not encumber our columns by a
literal transcript of its vast, bat perhaps not unne-
cessary, verbiage. The gist of the whole is, that it
declares the practice of intimidation with a view to
compel the giving or withholding of a vote to consti-
tute the offenos of " undue inffeenee," and provides
that any peso
committing each offence; shall be
guilty of a misdemeanour, and be also liable to
forfeit the MI of 601. to any person who shell sue
for the same, together with fell costs of suit." The
Emperor of gam, we are told, used to boast that
he had not ad off the heads of more than two
et Ida courtiers for disagreeable behaviour at his
outer table. The admiring ehrenickr who records
this instance, of imperial clesseney adds, not without
surprise, that even this paucity d executions was
found to operate in some degree as an impediment
' to the had' of oonareatios. We are no advocates
of Imam paniataws* no believers in the mere
tome et prohibitive law; still, we me by no means sere
that a Wawa el minima intonations filed,
' and 001. patties rearmed, against parties convicted
d the dirpeostal clines of slatted intimidation,
might not is sew degree tend to restrain the open
et the practice. is the ofifezzae.
• rasslrspealdag, ot people It
eminently le,"
I of presiesly that ekes who don't object to do shabby
things, bat have a great otesotion to be detected in
L doing them ; who love to owe* bat hate to be ex-
r pond ; and would forego even the hairy of orseming
• 'pia= mad tyrannising over eoracksies, if sash