The Sun.
London, England, 1865-11-07 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

POST.—The Emperor of the French must be one
the most hard-working Sovereigns that ever ruled
over a great nation. The form of the Imperial Go-
vernment and its executive action invite the personal
initiative of the Chief of the State in most import-
ant legislative affairs, which he must be ever revis-
ing and watching, imposing an immense amount of
detail. The ministers of Napoleon 111. are more the
instruments of the Sovereign's supreme direction of
affairs than advisers of the Crown ; the Emperor
means an individual ruler who reigns by universal
suffrage. Amid the complicated and multifarious
cares and labours of State the Emperor finds time
to employ his pen and periodically to treat the
world with a literary surprise. Before he mounted
his charger for the Italian campaign Louis
Napoleon had prepared the world by a pamphlet
on the unsatisfactory state of Italy, which attracted
universal attention. He has since published the
first volume of the " Life of Caesar," and now he
gives to the crowd a remarkable pamphlet on
Algeria, crowded with local information con-
cerning the Government administration of the
French colony, and proposing a series of remedial
reforms which could only have grown out of an
intimate study of a very complicated question.
The Emperor is reported to have exclaimed on
more than one occasion whilst asking questions
about Algeria—" I never can get two facts alike
or two similar views from any two men who
have lived in Algeria." Whether these un-
satisfactory and contradictory answers to the
Emperor's interrogations were the cause of
his taking the subject himself in hand—viz.,
an endeavour, by a new system of administra-
tion, to tranquillise the Arab tribes, improve
the condition of the people, and make Algeria
a gain and not a loss to France—whether or
not such was the cause, the Emperor, we know,
visited the French colony in May last. His object
was to make himself personally acquainted with
the condition of the country in every respect. But
before leaving France the author of the " Lettre
sur la Politique de la France en Alg6rie" studied
the ground, and the people, and the system of rule
which had been adopted since the French conquest
in 1830. The officers he interrogated in Algeria
were a little surprised to find the Sovereign so well
up in information belonging to this or that district ;
at least so say those who have recorded the Empe-
ror's visit to Algeria in 1865. The results of all this
previous study and personal observation are pre-
sented to the French people in a series of sugges-
tions for improving a colony on which France has
been expending untold life and treasure. The pre-
vailing impressions in the Imperial mind appear to
be these. It is believed that the various wild Arab
tribes which people this old Turkish settlement can
be civilised and made to mingle with the Christian
and Jewish foreign populations. It is desired that
the military character of the French colonisation
should be diminished, and civil rule promoted in
proportion. The substance of the whole of the mili-
tary reforms is thus stated :—" 1. To reduce the
number of military centres. 2. To place the greatest
portion of the forces on the boundary of the Tell.
3. To diminish insensibly the political and military
importance of the posts of Geryville, Laghouat, and
Djelfa ; to connect the tribes of the centre with
those of the boundary of the Tell, amongst which
these latter come to obtain supplies; to call back
from that part of the country all the colonists. 4.
To create on the boundary of the Tell stationary
tribes. 5. To reduce by degrees the strength of the
army to 50,000 men and to create movable columns,
each 1,800 strong. 6. To pay the greatest atten-
tion to the choice of the heads of military subdivi-
sions and of the Arab bureaux ; to avoid frequent
changes in the chiefs of those bureaux, and to
keep them at the same post as long as the interests
of their military career will permit ; not to ap-
point as heads of the bureau any but captains ;
to admit to that service officers of the special
arms ; to reduce them to be only staff officers of the
commanders of subdivisions ; to give the strictest
recommendation to have consideration shown in
every circumstance to the self-love of the Arab
chiefs, and to leave to these latter the command of
the goums when called under arms. 7. 'I o organise
a European militia, by exempting the young men
who have been drawn from service in France, and
to place them on the reserve in Algeria, according to
the rules established for the constitution of the re-
serve in the mother country. 8. To augment the
strength and number of the, battalions of Turcos,
and to reduce in France a company in each in-
fantry regiment. 9. To ameliorate tho smalas of
the Spahis, to create a marching regiment, and
form a special corps for the Arab bureaux. And,
10. To simplify the system of fortifications,
and of the military servitude around them.
Another prevailing conviction of the Imperial
author is that the religion, manners, and customs,
and some laws of these Mahometan tribes, should
be respected ; in a word, the Emperor's policy in
Algeria is reconciliation and education in the direc-
tion of modern European civilisation. The pamphlet
is occupied with a variety of subjects of detail—re-
form of laws, education, colonisation, regulation of
taxes, &c. It is not our intention to intrude on any
of these local subjects ; we -.vish to keep the main
questions in view. Can the nine distinct races of
these wild children of the Prophet, the mountain,
and the desert be brought to identify themselves
with the laws, agriculture, and commerce of modern
Europe ? The natives of Algeria are a strange
mixed race, descended from Romans, Vandals,
Turks, Circassians, Greeks, Italians—in fact, born
of the early emigrants to a land which attracted
the enterprising of the Old World from the days
of the Phoenicians, as well as at various periods
down to the French invasion in 1830. This people,
eminently imbued with the fanatical faith of the
Crescent, the Ruler of France proposes, by an im-
proved organisation, to invite from their tents and
wildernesses, and turn them into soldiers and agri-
culturists, mechanics and citizens of commercial
towns, if possible. " Then," says the Emperor,
" Algeria will be to us no longer a burden, but a
new element of strength. The Arabs, restrained
and, conciliated, will give us what they can best
give, namely, soldiers ; and the colony, become
flourishing by the development of its territorial
riches, will create a commercial movement emi-
nently favourable to the mother country. To us
the two grand,clifficult!es apparent in accomplish-
ing the generous intentions of the Sovereign seem,
in the first place, the difficulty of incorporating
the Oriental with the Christian world; and secondly,
the very little interest the French people take in
the most naturally wealthy colony on the face of
the earth. We have no instance of any of the
foreign occupations of Algeria taking root ; and in
the time of Turkish occupation, the authority of
the Dey went little beyond the coast towns, which
were the nests of the pirates and Jew merchants.
The French occupation, had it been confined to the
city of Algiers for trading purposes, might have
proved profitable to the mother 'country. As in
British India, the ambition of the soldier has caused
foreign arms and authority to spread over an im.
mense territory, which must be occupied at a costly
expenditure of life and money. The French occu-
pation of Algeria has made no more impression on
the Arab, in a civilising sense, than a century of
British occupation of India has changed the cha-
racter of the llindoo as regards social relations
with the conquerors. France has sent nothing to
Algeria comparatively but soldiers and, strange to
say, corn. After you leave the society of Marseilles
you seldom hear the word " Algerie" pronounced
in France. There is no overgrown in
that country, and a little commercial attraction to
induce a Frenchman to leave his family, his cafe,
and a general well-to-do position at home, for a life
of toil and adventure in the notoriously rich lands
of Algeria. The Irishman and the German prefer
the New World, where they have neither a fanatical
race nor a military Government to contend with
and influence their free actions. The Emperor
Napoleon has made an effort to modify and ame-
liorate, we might almost say, the laws of climate,
religion, and experience. If his suggeste.i?. Algeria
suggested new ad-
ministration of the governing system !
succeeds, and Christian European civilisation is
enabled to incorporate the wildest tribes of the
Oriental and Mahometan world, a work of meal-
culable importance will have been accomplished,
and will date a new era in the history of the East.
We can only wish France every success, and applaud
the Emperor's noble inspirations.
TIDIES.—The public will see with satisfaction that
the diplomatic rupture between this country and
Brazil has been terminated by a formal reconcilia-
tion of the two Governments. Her Majesty has
accredited an Envoy in special mission to the Bra-
zilian Court, and the Emperor of Brazil has received
this Minister at an interview in which expressions,
of amity and satisfaction were interchanged. The
customary relation; therefore, between friendly
States have now been renewed, and Braziland Eng-
land stand once more on good terms with each other.
It would be neither timely nor politic to revive the
history of the past quarrel, or to venture upon a
balance of the wrongs endured and the claims pre-
ferred. Partly by arbitration, and partly by means
less satisfactory, these differences have been ad-
justed, and if we, in the last resort, appealed to the
right of the strongest, we have now accepted a cor-
responding obligation in being the first to propose
reconciliation and friendship. There would be no
utility in reopening the old story of the rupture. A