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

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

TIMES.—When M. de Persigny was exp)aining
to his audience last week that there was as much
liberty in France as in England, only that it was
French liberty in one case and British liberty in the
other, he found himself a little embarrassed by the
question of the Press. It was impossible to main-
tain that the French Press was free, even according
' to the French idea of freedom ; and so M. de Per-
signy frankly made an exception of the case, and
justified the exception. Ho said that the "founders
of English liberty" had experienced precisely the
same necessity, and adopted precisely the same
course ; and, as he designated the period of the legis-
lation referred to, we have no difficulty in following
his argument. His intention was to compare France
under Napoleon 111. with England under Queen
Anise or George 1., and to defend the restrictions
now imposed on the French Press by examples
drawn from our history in the last century. The
parallel thus suggested opens a very curious view.
It is not to be denied that the dynastic histories of
England and France coincide, through certain chap-
ters, in a most remarkable manner. We began with
our great Revolution, among the results of which
were the dethronement and execution of the reign-
ing Sovereign and the substitution of a Common-
wealth for a Monarchy. After an interval of a few
years this Revolution was followed by a Restoration
of the legitimate dynasty; and again, after another
interval, the Restoration was succeeded by a fresh
Revolution, which expelled the legitimate King,
and established a Constitutional Monarchy in a new
branch of the Royal House. In the history of France
each these revolutions is exactly reproduced.
The French first had their great Revolution,
which had brought about the execution of Louis
XVI, and the establishment of a Republic. Then
came the Restoration in the person of Louis
XVIII., and then again the expulsion of the legie
timate dynasty, and the substitution of a Consti-
tutional monarchy in the House of Orleans. Now,
it very naturally happened that at each of these
political conjunctures the French bethought theme
selves of the English precedents. In 1789 a complete
Anglomania pfevailed in Paris. Royal dukes walked
about in top-boots, and English customs were every-
where in fashion. In 1830 it was the boast of Louis
Philippe and his Ministers that the new revolution
was the exact counterpart of that which finally
secured England its freedom and its tranquillity,
and that With this event the series would terminate
in their case as it had done in ours. But at this point
the parallels ceased. 211. Guizot's anticipations wet e
not fu;filled. There was yet another revolution
to come. Louis Philippe, instead of steering the
new monarchy through the shoals and breakers
ahead of it, suffered shipwreck, and a second re-
public, succeeded by a second empire, supervened
upon the crash. When it is urged, therefore, on
behalf of the successive Governments of France
that they ought to be compared, not with our Go-
vernments in the present reign, but with those in
the reign of the first two Georges, there is an appa-
rent foundation for the claim. M. Guizot's position
was that of a Sir Robert Walpole, not of a Sir
Robert Peel. It could only be required of him,
therefore, that he should be as liberal as Walpole
was in his political acts, and not more unscrupulous
in his management of Parliament. Ho was sur-
rounded by the partisans of an exiled dynasty, ace
tively intriguing for a Restoration, and still sanguine
of ultimate success. He was even beset by dangers
which Walpole escaped, for in France the advocates
of Republicanism as well as Legitimacy still sur-
vived to threaten the Government established, and
there was a powerful party of Imperialists besides.
It was apparently unreasonable to exact of a
Minister conducting an Administration under these
conditions that he should accord absolute free-
dom of action to parties who might be expected to
use it for the destruction, not only of the Govern-
ment, but of the dynasty too. Nor is the argument
at first sight much less applicable now than it was
twenty years ago. We are apt to forget how slowly
things right themselves after a political convulsion.
Between the first and what happily proved to be the
last of our Revolutions about fitty years intervened,
but it would be a great mistake to imagine that the
institutions of 1688 were rapidly established. For-
tunately for us, they were never actually subverted,
and as the tree could not be overthrown it gradually
took root, hut many were the political storms to be
encountered, and many the dangers to be escaped.
It is of course hard to give any arbitrary date as
marking the end of all dynastic rivalries and the con-
summation of the political work, but the resumption
of prayers for the Royal family in Roman Catholic
chapels is regarded with some reason as indicating
the adhesion of the last outstanding malcontents.
That happened in the year 1767, so that our Act
of Settlement, passed iu 1701, took nearly 70 years
in settling. We need only contrast with these
periods those of the various French Revolutions
to see that some allowance may still be claimed by
the Governments of France. Even if the dynasty
of Louis Philippe, the Constitutional Monarchy,
had never been overthrown, and had weathered
every storm up to the present day, it would still at
this moment have reached only that stage of growth
which was attained by our own Monarchy in the
year 1722. But in France the Constitutional tree
enjoyed no such opportunities, It was uprooted
before it had stood twenty years, and in its place
there now stands another plant, which has not yet
had even that time to take root and grow. Mea-
suring, in fact, the course of French history with
our own, stage by stage, and reckoning from
the latest Revolution, we should be carried
well into the next century before we found our-
selves at a date which would correspond with the
epoch of final settlement in England. But the fact
is that all this parallel, though historically curious,
falls very short of a true comparison. M. de Per-
signy and the statesmen of his school leave out of
the azcount the immeasurable difference between the
two ages contrasted. George I. and his Ministers
did not succeed to the government of a country in
which the freedom of the press had been long enjoyed
—in fact, such freedom, as we understand it now had
never existed at all. The press, as it was regulated
by Walpole, was no such exception to the institutions
around it as the French press is now. It was pretty
nearly on a level with other things, and had, at any
rate, never been in a much better position. It grew
as other institutions grew, and was adopted in its
progress to the wants of successive generations. In
the eighteenth century, moreover, there were no
invidious comparisons to be drawn between one coml•
try and another. Englishmen could not look across
the Channel and contemplate the operation of a free
press in France. They knew nothing either from
recollection or ohservatiou of a better state of things,
and therefore the facts created little offence. But
the country in which the press is now reduced, ac-
cording to M. de Persigny's own estimate, to the
condition of the English press in the days of Wal-
pole! is a country in which journalism was recently
carried to a high point of political excellence. The
age in which these obsolete restrictions are revived
is an age eminently characterised by free thought
and diffusion of knowledge. It is an age which re-
cognises infinite advantage in free discussion. We
have come to the conclusion that within limits very
liberally fixed, nothing but good can come of inquiry
and argument. Between this age therefore and au age
longgone by no true parallel can be drawn, and M. de
Persigny himself involuntarily marks the difference
when he expends so much rhetoric and ingenuity in
justifying the policy maintained. Walpole would
never have taken that trouble, nor would it ever
have been expected of him. We are not blind to
the exigencies of what M. de Persigny calls " a
country newly constituted." It is the old appeal,—
Res durce et regni novitas. But as long as the press
is kept under such thraldom as is maintained in
France, so long will the best instrument of political
progress be lost.

PosT.—Of all places in the world the last in which
one would have expected to hear of an insurrection
is a SWiS3 Canton, and we wore proportionately
astonished when we were told a few days since that
in Geneva the people had come in collision with
the authorities, barricades had been raised, and
blood spilt• A day later we learned that the die.
turbances had been suppressed, and order once
more restored, and that what was at first spoken
of as an insurrection was nothing more than that
sudden ebullition of popular feeling to which oar
French neighbours—no mean authorities on such
matters—give the name of an emeute. In Great
Britain the disturbances would have been set down
as simple election riots, and indeed thecircumstance
alone of the borough being in the present instance
the State invested them with the importance which
they possessed. The Swiss Confederation is very
differently constituted from that league which,
until a few veers since, was known to the world as
the American Union, nor do the States composing it
claim that unfettered independence on the enjoyment
of which the American States so much pride them-
selves. Into the distinguishing characteristics of the
two republics it will however be unnecessary to enter,
nor will it, for tunately,be incumbent On us to explain
the relationship existing between the local Govern-
ment of tha Canton of Geneva and the supreme
Federal jurisdiction which is exercised by the dele-
gates of all the Cantons. The appeal made on the
recent occasion by the State Council to that of the
Federation for assistance in restoring order, though
responded to, was in truth unnecessary, and the
Genevese are entitled to the credit of having allayed
the storm which they had themselves excited. The
issue raised by the populace was of the simplest
and apparently most unimportant, kind. No prin-
ciple of government was at stake, nor did any of the
disaffected citizens contemplate even the slightest
ehange in a political system which secures to them
the fu:.est enjoyment of civil liberty. The simple
question was whether the election of a candidate to
the office of member of the State Council could be