The Express.
London, England, 1868-02-24 00:00:00

tion Act.

General Grant has Fispended the order of
General Hancock removing the city council of New
Orleans. General Hancock has notified General
Grant that be will tender his resignation unless
allowed to enforce the order. It is reported that
General Grant refuses to yield the point, and tho
matter has been referred to the President.
. .

The North German Lloyd's steamer Union, from
New York ou the 13th inst., arrived at South-
ampton yesterday, with 73 passengers for that port,
Havre, and Bremen, 41 sacks of mails, 315,980
duffs. fur France, and 1,200 dole. for Bremen.

FRANCE.

a,/ r

Omen ors owe comissreiremer.) -
PARIS, SATURDAY ETRIMIG.
It would bo a great mistake to suppose that the
issue joined between the opposition and the govern-
ment on the amendment supported yesterday by
M. Thies, raises any deLvntly arguable question. M.
Thins drove M. Rouher into a corner, and showed
conclusively that if the present system is to be
maintained, the country represented by the press,
its only efficient representative, will not be able to
exercise the right of discussing the debates. With
all the authority of his reputation and character,
and all the lucidity of his eloquence, he put in the
strongest light the simple proposition that
to criticise a parliamentary debate without,
to some extent, reporting it, is impossible ;
and therefore the government speaks perfi-
diously and hypocritically when it pretends
to allow full discussion, but forbids what
it calls unlawful reporting. The article of the
constitution, which, for the first time in the
history of Franco, gave a monopoly of " reports,"
properly so called, to the government, only meant
to prohibit private reports from being substituted
for the official one. Articles briefly commenting
upon the debates, such as had been lately prose-
cuted, were not within the purview of the coup
clitat legislator. The discussion in the Senate in
1863 on M. Darimon's petition clearly showed
that in the opinion of the great authority, President
Troplong, such a notice and analysis of a debate
as was necessary for a critical article upon it did
not constitute an illegal report. He (M. Thiers)
was a member of the wench Academy, and had
written an historical work which, without eventing
himself unduly, he was at let...t entitled to refer to
as a testimonial that he was a literary man.
Well! be declared, after all hisexperience, that he
would find it impossible in treating historical sub-
jects to confine hiumelf to criticism, and not trench
on the bounds of narration. He went through the
ten judgments lately delivered by President
Deslesraux against Paris journals for illegal re-
porting, and argued that every ono of them was
based upon considerations incompatible with that
right of free discussion which the government pro-
fessed to allow and invite.
The Vine-President in the chair, Baron Jerome
David, strong in the fiction of the infallibility of
the judges, stopped M. Thiers to tell him he had no
right to criticise the judges.
M. Thiers vehemently replied that as a member
of the legislature he was above the judicial bench,
and had a right to object to its decisions. He had
no desire to speak disrespectfully of the judges,
but he would say that those judges who were
appointed to try press offences could not, and that
from nu fault of their own, command public con-
fidence. Nothing could be more reasonable than
the amendment, which proposed that when • journal
should have published the official report textually,
it should not be liable to be prosecuted for a sum-
mary or analysis. In conclusion, he admitted that
the present bill, with all its shortcomings, was a
great improvement on the arbitrary system which
prevailed before ; but he thought it would be a
shocking thing if the Chamber, which discussed the
greatest questions which could agitate society, I
would not permit its own proceedings to be freely
commented on.
M. (huller de Cassagnac opposed the amend-
ment, and, in support of his views, quoted several
extracts from journals of 1848, to show that when
reporting was free the papers always gave the best
place to their own friends, and, in a pretended
analysis, abused and misrepresented the deputies
who disagreed with them. M. Emile 011ivier cited
extracts from the Pays of this week (M. Grimier de
Cassagnac is the editor of the Pays) to show that
journals patronised by the government of the
present day, and which could with impunity
lemmatise the debate, speak of the opposition de-
puties in more violent language than any cited by
M. de Cassagnac from the debates of 1848. A
great row ensued, the young President, David,
frequently exhorting members not to in-
dulge in personalities. M. Rouher rose to say
that he was ready to reply,
_and that there would
be nothing in what he wished to say calculated to
provoke excitement. The Chamber decided ulti-
mately to hear M. Rouher to-morrow (this day.
It was rather inferred from what M. Rouher said
that he was about to abandon the utterly absurd
system attacked by M. Thiers ; but I hear this
evening that the gist of his speech is simply
that the Chamber cannot interfere so long as the
ten journals convicted are before the Court of
Appeal. I rather think, however, the Appeal
Court will receive orders to reverse President
Delanaux's judgment. Such • reversal would not
be a settlement of the question, but it would leave
the practice of the legislation of 1852 a little less
Micelle= than at present.
Theammey article of the Ltherti says :
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la the kends of epeculakes, who force up the
Basta@ Os masters' prices, and themby deceive sad Mien
the hewing public.

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