The Sun.
London, England, 1864-01-18 00:00:00

The French Legislative Assembly,

PARIS, Jan. 15.
The Legislative Body sat yesterday—Duke de
Morny in the chair.
Boaher, 'Mini:ger of State; M. Ronland,
Minister presiding (war the Council of State; and
the other Government Commissioners were in their
usual places.
The order of tine day was the adjourned discus-
sion on the Addi:ess, the points under consideration
being the amendment relative to the electoral ques-
tion.

M. Thiers—Uentlemen, two amendments were
presented on the electoral system. The first has
been rejected, and I now rise to speak in support
of the second, not that I have the hope or the pre-
tension to obtain its adoption, but because of an
understanding come to some six weeks since, when
I wished to make some observations on the elections,
that I should reserve what I had to say till the de-
bates on the Address. In entering on this discus-
sion the first obstacle I encounter is the allegation
that our object is to weaken the moral authority of
the Chamber. Allow me to remove this obstacle.
The law has constituted you supreme judges in
electoral matters, and you have given your decisions
on the late elections. The question has therefore
been definitely decided, and I declare to the majo-
rity, without the least intention of flattery, for at
my time of life a man has no need to flatter any
power on earth, that I deeply respect it and bow to
its decisions. Ido not hold all your opinions, nor
do you hold all mine. To my great regret I shall
be compelled to vote against you, but I neverthe-
less entertain the utmost respect for your intentions.
I must beg your permission to make one remark.
(" Go on,' go on.") You are in the position of a
Power which has not met with any serious opposi-
tion ; contradiction surprises and offends you.
When, like ins, you shall have passed long years
under the weight of contradiction yon will bear it
better- I now come to the point under discussion.
'We think that with regard to principles, the Govern-
ment pushes them to extremes, and that its roses
of proceediag are not all good. Yon will say that
our opinion is open to suspicion, because the proceed-
ings in question have been directed against ourselves.
I admit this, but for the same reasons you are also
liable to suspicion. (Movement.) What makes
me think that our opinion is not altogether wrong is
that I do not see among the Ministers the individual
Minister who directed the elections. I cannot think
that his services would have been dispensed with
had his conduct been altogether irreproachable.
Tills appears to justify our opinion. We shall be
told that as the Minister is no longer in power our
reproaches are uncalled for. I do not like finding
fault, and should not now address you had the pro-
ceedings of which we csmplained ceased when the
Minister retired from office; but from what has
recently passed, and what is now passing in the
Bas-Rhin there seems to be a kind of persistency
approaching to bravado. That is why I insist on
this question. I do not dispute the pretensions of
the Government to have its candidates, and to mani-
fest its preference. I admit the principle of official
candidates, but I shall perhaps be told that I do so on
recount of my own conduct when Minister of the
Interior. It was not co, however, for I have come
to this conclusion,purely from conviction, without
any reference to my own antecedents. I have re-
cently reperused the verification of powers in 1834.
when I was Minister of the Interior. It was
shortly after the insurrection of April, and great
exeitement prevailed. Four elections were annulled
by the Chamber, and I beg your attention to the
grounds for those decisions. The first election was
quashed because the candidate, who had been a
Prefect, had not retired from his functions for a
spacet of six months, as required by law ; the second
on account of the candidate's electoral qualification
being disputed; and the third, because the person
elected was found to want one vote to make the
necessary maj7nity. As to the fourth election, the
InOthe which led to its being annulled was remark-
able. The ballot was not commenced at the time
appointed, and only remained open four hours in-
stead of six, and for that reason the election was in.
validated. Such was at the time the rigorous con-
duct observed in ctse of elections. What -was the re•
preach made against us? A member of the Chem-
bar spoke of af eye de paix who had been threatened
with dismissal by a functionary', when the Minister
of Justice ascended the tribune and said that if the
functionary who had done so were known he would
be himself dismissed. There were among the can-
d;dates of that period a son-in-law of Marshal Mar-
tier. The Sub-Prefect of the Arrondissement, in a
private letter to two or three mayors, said that the
election of that candidate would be agreeable to the
Royal family. Oa hearing of the fact I disavowed
the Sub-Prefect, reprimanded him publicly, and
ordered that the King's name should never be men-
tioned in election matters. (Approbation on several
benches.)
A Voice—You were then -a responsible Minister.
M. Thiers—Yon perceive that we were then very
severe with regard to elections. Nevertheless I
accept official candidateships, but on certain condi-
tions. Where is the foundation of the right of the
Government to publicly designate its candidates to
be found? I find rules for the point in free coun-
tries, and even there the right is limited. If a die-
tatorship exists there is no need )f discussion. It
is therefore, I repeat, in free countries that we must
seek for the rules which serve as the foundation of
official candidateships. and I look for it in England,
the freest of all. There all opinions are divided
into two great parties, one which impels the coun-
try towards what is called progress—a vague word,
which I do not much admire, for it may contain evil
as well as good—the other wishing to prevent the
country from going too fast. The former of those
e opinions calls itself Liberal, and the latter Conser-
vative. In England the Liberals take the name of
Whigs, and their adversaries that of Tories ; in
Belgium the corresponding terms are Liberals
and Catholics. Both of these opinions are good,
according to the time that is passing. When a
country is in the background and some of its
institutions out of date, as in the case of the
rotten boroughs in England, the Whigs are
right ; on the other hand, when the forward
movement is too rapid, the Tories do well to check
it. Although I am not quite so old as certain joule.
stela pretend, I have several times seen the Whigs
and the Tories succeed each other in power, and
always for the benefit of the country. In Belgium,
thanks to the foresight of the wise and prudent
King who reigns there—and only reigns—the
Catholics and the Liberals have succeeded each other,
and repaired their mutual faults. Both have, there-
fore, been of use. What are the rights of those
different opinions? When the Whigs are in oposi-
tion they support their candidates by means of their
journals, their meetings, and their subscriptions,
and they certainly do not lose that right when the
party comes into power. In free countries the Go-
vernment is nothing more than an
opinion which
has attained power, and does not for that reason
lose its rights; it, however, contracts duties. What
are those duties ? The first is to respect propriety.
This is not an absolute but a relative duty ; the ob-
servance may
be less rigid in the lower classes of
society, but it is stringent in the higher degree of
propriety. The second of those duties is that of no'_
abusing, in favour of this or that candidate, the
power which Government places in the hands of its
agents, Under these conditions all opinions have
the right of self-defence, and even that of spreading
themselves abroad. In England, where there is
little or no centralisation, the temptation for parties
is power to exceed their duty is not very strong;
lout in France, the resources which centralisation
places in the hands of the Government agents are
liumensoi And to abstain from doing them demands
the abnegation of a stoic. It is your part, gentle-
men, to become, i 1 not absolute steles, at least men
who respect the duties imposed on them by their
position. Of all the points of decorum that ought
to be Vebpec%td, the first is not to allow the name of
the Savereign to figure in an electoral contest. But
you all know that, in a great number of elections,
official candidates have been presented to the country
as C4udide.tes of the Emperor.
Several voictes— Of the Emperor's Government.
Taierg—l iTag pardon ; there were some, in-
deed, called as sou say, but there were others die_
called candidates of the Emperor. If the

tine