The Sun.
London, England, 1864-08-30 00:00:00

VALE OF TOWY.

The half-yearly meeting of this company was
held at Llandovcry pn Wednesday; Mr. W. Camp..
bell Davis (deputy-chairman) presided.• The Be,
counts showed a balance in hand to be carried for-
warded to the next half-yearly account.
The CHAIRMAN moved the adoption of the report
and accounts, which was seconded and carried.
The SECRETARY stated that a reduction had been
made of company's debts during the past half year,
and that it was proposed to pay off the remainder
of them in the early part of the ensuing ycar, whe❑
a dividend of £3 per cent. would be available.

A BERys.rwrrii AND WELSH COAST.
The half-yearly meeting of this company wits hold
at the offices. Bridge•street, Westminster; Mr 11.
Gartside in the chair.
The report stated that the disary,reernent and dis-
eatisfaction that. exisq,:l anumg Ow director`} at th,
last meeting had subsided, and had been succeeded
by perfect harmony and unity of action. The re,
sults of the past session of Parliament as regarded
the interests of the company had been satisfactory
and successful. The whole line front Muellynlleth
to Aberystwith hud been opened, and the traffic was;
highly sati4uctory. The directors propuse to rein-
troduce in the next session of Parliament the bill
for establishing steamboat communication between
North Wales and Ireland. About liF.lf the land re.
quired for the line between Barmouth and Portma-
„ dr.lek bad been pirclased,,r.nd or tt...e rrlnainir g land

(From the Debats.)
We were not surprised to find again in this new
speech that philosophic and historical theory so dear
to the speaker, and on which he establishes the
conclusion which is set forth both at the beginning
and the end of the address, that the present consti-
tution has founded liberty in France. Aa for our-
selves, we have no interest in denying the fact
attested by history, and asserted so emphatically
by the duke, that liberty, like power, varies in its
development in a thousand ways, and that each free
people presents a character and a physiognomy
which are personal to it. Yes, we are aware that
there are diversities everywhere; but everywhere
also beneath those diversities history shows us
something common to all fixed and essential, which
M. de Persigny does not or will not see. Among all
free nations,. we find what an illustrious speaker
called in the last discussion on the address the strict
necessary—the minimum of liberty. Can the asser-
tion be made that this minimum, as it has boc.n
practised for the last twelve years, is enjoyetri,t
present in France under the constitution of 1852" P
Here we will not speak in our own names; nor
should we venture to shield ourselves behind the
opinion of M. Thiers, but we may be permitted to op-
pose to Duke de Persigny an authority less suspected,
and one which he cannot completely disavow him-
self. M. Bouher, who is also strongly devoted to
the present constitution, has explained the essential
condition which he thinks suits the Government of
France. Whilst M. Rouher proclaims the groat
principle of administrative decentralization, Duke
de Persigny, if we have rightly understood him,
sees nothing to be changed and nothing to be re-
formed in what exists ; his ideal is the present
9rganisation of the country ; the regime, in which
p. spirit of centralisation prevails, in which society
has moved for centuries under the guidance of a
skilfully-devised series of places which protects all
interests:and presides over all the operations of life ;
in which, in fine, all the instruments of authority
ere in the hands of a vast administration exclusively
charged with the maintenance of public order and
security. Between those two theories, which as
may be seen have but little in common, we have no
need to say our choice is made; we prefer by far
that of M. Rouher to that of Duke de Persigny.
(From the Nation.)
Duke de Persigny, who is one of the most faithful
friends and one of the firmest supporters of the
empire, considers that the people of France may be
very happy in their own country,and very proud of
being Frenchmen, without adopting the parliamen.
tary as in and without having responsible ministers
regime England, or having a restricted electoral suf-
frage as in that country. We are of opinion, and do
not cease to repeat that the notion of making liberty
subordinate to determined forms is not a philoso-
phic idea. Our masters in that doctrine are Mira.
beau and Benjamin Constant. To think thus is to
think wisely, and, moreover, is to employ a lan-
gugge very encouraging to all patriots. The day on
which there shall b no longer in France any other
party than that in favour of liberty, liberty will be
obtained, and the Government will be sure to live.
We also admit with the ex-Minister of the Interior
that, among those men who attack the Government
under the pretext of demanding liberty, a great
number do so from animosity towards the Govern.
meat. On that point no one is deeeived ; their in-
tentions may be detected through their doubtful
attitude—they even pierce through the most solemn
declarations, and from beneath the most sacred
formulae. Revolutions have, indeed, greatly ener.
vated the nation; with respect to civic courage and
freedom of opinion Frenchmen are rapidly declining.
Duke de Persigny says so in his speech, and he is
right. He is, however, wrong when he draws from
that state of things the conclusion that certain in-
dispensable liberties should be adj oarned. To remedy
the evil those liberties should, on the contrary, be
accorded as early as possible. Perhaps, in restoring
to certain people the liberty of saying what
they think, they would be cured of the
ugly fault of saying what they do not think.
A nation is never elevated by an excess of authority,
but by the exercise of liberty it is restored and purl.
fied. Liberty is healthgiving. If the liberty which
is inherent in the Napoleonic idea, so well under•
stood and so well defined by Duke de Persigny, is
of a better quality than that of the Government
of July or.the Republican liberty of 1848, that is a
reason for not holding it back any longer. It must
be applied to us quickly as the infallible remedy for
all our weakness: This is the reason why, after
having adhered to the premises of the speech at St.
Etienne, we are led to reject the conclusions, and
substitute for them others entirely contrary.
(Rom thz Temps.)

The duke, in his new parallel between France and
England, has gone back beyond the origin of the
Hanoverian dynasty, at which he has up to the pre•
sent time liked to stop. He went as far back as the
Conquest, and he appears to think that the Anglo-
Saxon race is still at present subjected to the yoke
of the Norman conquerors, the only depositaries of
English authority and liberty. We exaggerate
nothing :—" There we see, scattered over the surface
of the country, a whole electoral body, a whole poli-
tical class who, as the traditional inheritors of the
Conquest, have held all the means of7influence ever
since William the Conqueror, administer the coun-
ties, dispense justice, levy taxes, maintain public
order, and, in short, enjoy all the principal at-
tributes which belong in France to the adminis-
trative hierarchy." That view is erroneous.
Long since the mixture of races, not less than
the reciprocal penetration of institutions, is a
fait accompli in England. Among the most
illustrious houses, there are very few which date
back to the Conquest, and the immense majority of
the English electoral body has nothing, absolutely
nothing, to do with William the Conqueror. What
is exact in the Duke de Persigny's parallel is that
universal suffrage exists in France and does not in
England. What is false is the consequences which
he draws from that fact. "Iu England the prin-
ciples of authority and liberty cannot be in conflict,
and are not sacrificed one to the other ; for liberty
is in the hands of those who directly exercise alit lin-
tity in all things." The Duke de Persigny appears,
therefore, to think that Ult.! electors alone are free
in England. That is a grave error, and everyone
well knows that, without sper.king of the right of
meeting and ether rights from which no one in ex-
cl-adej, liberty is git,ranteed in England
to every one, end consequently to the non-electors
as in Franco to the electors. r, u t bow is it that the
duke has not seen that his principle turns againa
his thesis? Let us admit that liberty is in England
the monopoly of the governing classes ; the conse-
quence is that in France, where there ars no classes,
liberty—end be it well understood,English liberty,
for th,le is no other--ought to be the appanage of
everyone, and that universal suffrage has nothing to
do with that skilfully-devised hierarchy, which
protects all interests and presides over all the ape.
ratione of life," In a despotic. State ore rrIEVI atone

The whole town is talking of nothing more ear■
nestly than about the famous article from the pen
of Alfred Assolant in the Courser du Den zanche,
which has brought down suspension on that •weekly
organ of independence, and has so enhanced the sell.'
lag price of the last issued number that it cannot
be now procured. A brief summary of what thus
alarms our authorities may be acceptable
Yes, this reign is a great one. We have planted
our tricolour at the four corners of the map. IVe
have rescued the circumcifried and turbaned Turk
from the schismatic Muscovite ; snatched the Ma.
ronite daughters of Lebanon from Turk and Drusc ;
founded in Mexico an empire destined to last as
long as that in France ; we mount guard round the,
Pope against his will and that of Italy ; we have
built a esthedral at Pekin, where your Chinaman
will be baptised some of these days ; we have put
our foot in all quarters—and, as far as that goes,
we are a great nation !
Don't talk to me of what all this has cost in cash
or conscripts; you say 200,000 Frenchmen fell in
the field or died in hospital. I'm sorry for it—.
there is chiar'oscuro in all great pictures. what
about expense? Are we not rich enough, as Li.,
mayrac tells us, to pay for our glory ? Can't a
body borrow on the security of the 88 departments,
besides the 89th (celui de lit Seine), though that be.
longs to Prefect Hausman ?
Hence both I and nine millions of my fellovr
electors believe firmly that Prance has but to lift
her little finger to overawe Europe as far as Kamm
skatka, and that von Bismark thinks so too.
It is true that since Feb. 17, 1852, our printing
press is in the grip of Government ; that editors and
managers are nominees of the Home Office as
much
as the keepers of every tobacco shop ; that 500,000
paid functionaries vote as one man for official can.,
didates ; that primary schools cost:but one-twentieth
of the sum wanted for soldiery ; that every year a,
crop of 800,000 conscripts must be had to be drille d
in idlenebt, - worse— 'his is perhaps wanted tb atc
we may be a great people. Aye, there's the rub ;
bat let us ace.
From 1792 to 1852 we have had fl 3 diets ,ct
forms of rule—twice a republic, once an empi re,
and two successive kingships. Let us take end ,of
those at its acme, and pit each with what we n ow
witness, also at its probably highest pinnacle at the

present hour.
In 1797, after Campo Formio, France had en-
larged its old boundary with Belgium, all the lea
bank of the Rhine, comprised Holland, freed Italy,
founded the Cisalpine and Ligurian republics, and
would have swept it clean from " Alp to Adriatic"
had not General Bonaparte, violating the orders of
the Directory, handed over Venice to Austria. Oux
nation had, after five years of civil war and foreign
aggression, become the true arbiter of the Cont 1-
nent. Our armies were commanded by Benapart e,•
Kieber, Massena, Desaix, Hoche, and Joubert ; Ca .r.
not was our War, Talleyrand our Foreign Ministear.
Monge, envier, Laplace, Lagrange, Volney, ea-
hauls, were at the Institute ; Chateaubriand came
back from emigration with his genie du Chris•
tianisme : Benjamin Constant and de Stael added
impulse to the mental movement; art kept pace
with science ; nor was it to the Directory that this
wondrous development was due (they were a lot of
nobodies), it was to the native energies of France
freely allowed to expand. 'Twas that the prees and
the rostrum were equally unshackled, and every
citizen felt himself a component part and naive pars
tioipator in the general grandeur. _
What was the case after a lapse of 15 years ?
In 1810 there was a single man erect amid the
general prostration ; he had genius, a prodigious
army, a budget thrice as heavy as that of the Res
public; be held garrison at Hamburg and at Seville,
shook hands with a Russian Czar, was eon-in-law
to an Austrian Kaiser, put his brothers on thrones
in Spain, Holland, and Westphalia, gave Napitis to
his brother-in-law, made his adopted son Viceroy of
Italy, his son Roi de Rome. Except the British
Press and Parliament, all was dumb before him.
His voice alone resounded through the Continental
desert. When he sneezed twenty kings ware
hand to cry," God bless him !" Was France great
all the while ?—not a bit of it.

The conscript crop was cut twice in each yea.: ;
wo thirds of all French families were in mourning ;

taxation crushed the country in spite of war con-
tributions levied remorselessly elsewhere; our
young men were tracked by gendarmes in the .forests
in an effort to escape from the ranks ; all oolonial
produce was denied our homesteads ; every p refect
was a sovereign satrap, every journalist had a. polies
inspector at his elbow ; folks interchanged their
thoughts in a whisper ; the Corps Legislatif was

mute ; the Senate servile ; in a few years the .whole
structure crumbled to earth ; all was hollow, all
was rotten.
With these memories before them, our State
oracles denounce parliamentism—that is to say they
want to revive the old danger and degradation of
France. They don't want their acts discusoed :we
are to learn what has been done in the name of the
country when our control can be of no avail; hence
the distrust felt as much at home as abroad. Hence
England, in iron■clad panoply, rests on her rifle
within her island ; hence Prussia and the North
stand on the qui vive.
Is oar Government even feared ? Is the French
Empire even a hobgoblin (croque-tnitaine), as of

old ? Not in the least. Ceorrtschakoff deals with

Poland ; von Bismark demolishes Denmark, in de.
fiance and disregard of what is thought in Paris ;
while we !get King visitors from Madrid, with
embassies from Siam and the Tycoon.