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. To 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 the 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 wish 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 w
pollissible
new element of strength. The Arabs, restrained
and conciliated, will give us what they can best
beio "says the Emperor,
"us longer a burden, but a
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.,:difficulties 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 Hindoo 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 population 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 fanatic al
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 suggested. new ad. -
ministration of the governing system in
succeeds, and Christian European civilisation is
enabled to incorporate the wildest tribes of the
Oriental and Mahometan world, a work of incal-
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.
TIMES.—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-
zihan Court, and the Emperor of Brazil has received
this Minister at an interview in which expressions

of amity and satisfaction were interchanged. The
customary relations, therefore, between friendly
States have now been renewed, and Brazil and 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 iu being the first to propose
reconciliation and friendship. There would be no
utility in reopening the old story of the rupture. A

student of political history will see in it an example
of the manner in which small things become great
when bad blood exists already. Perhaps we should
have to go back to the old controversies about the
slave trade for the first germs of ill-feeling, but in
the end a slight wound became liable to gangrene,
and the diplomatic catastrophe at length occured.
The occasion was signalized by more than usual
discussion, and it was evident that the Brazilians
were by no means disposed to let the judgment of
the English public go against them by default. We
need not, however, ascribe exclusively to the zeal
of Brazilian " agents" the interest which was un-
doubtedly created in this quarrel. Brazil is one of
our best customers. Considering the smallness of
its population, our commercial transactions with
the Empire are on an extraordinary scale, and
the intercourse is singularly profitable to both
countries. Of the whole imports into Brazil, a
good half comes from Great Britain or British pos-
sessions ; of her whole exports, nearly a third finds
its way to England. Cotton, sugar, and hides are
very useful commodities to us, and we return in
cotton stuffs more than we receive in the raw mate-
rial. But these were not the only considerations in-
ducing regret at the rupture between the two Go-
vernments. Brazil, excepting apparently within the
sphere of diplomacy, was a peculiarly inoffensive
State. She was given neither to cheating nor bully-
ing. She never traded on her comparative weakness
as promising protection in the wrong, nor did she
make any parade of political position. In the whole
of the New World there was net a State which ap-
peared to give so little trouble and offer so much
profit to us as Brazil, so that the regret, therefore,
of the community was exceedingly natural when an
unpleasantness which they could hardly understand
was gradually developed into a serious quarrel. In
some quarters we think it fortunate and creditable
to preserve peace ; with Brazil it seemed something
hard and unaccountable when peace was disturbed.
Let us now hope that the little bickerings which led
by accumulation to this rupture may have been ex-
tinguished in the process, and that the old grounds of
ill-feeling may have been fairly effaced. From this
point we may make a fresh start, and do better, per-
haps, than before. The slave question can hardly
trouble us again, and, indeed, if Brazil did cling to
the institution somewhat tenaciously at one time,
there was always a characteristic in the position of
the Brazilian negro which deserved consideration.
In Brazil alone, of all countries in the world, the
negro was not an outcast. To a great extent he was
admitted to that equality which only the extreme
Abolitionists in the United States venture to advo-
cate, -and which few Americans seem prepared to
support. There was a free intermixture between
the black and white races of the Empire. Europeans,
Africans, and Indians married and intermarried,
until now, as it is thought, an actual majority
of the whole population of Brazil is of mixed
extraction. This, we believe, has never oc-
curred elsewhere, and the fact is worth recording.
For the rest, it is almost impossible to conceive a
country with a greater wealth of resources than
Brazil. The Empire has never been surveyed with
sufficient accuracy to determine its area within half
a million of square miles or so, but it is larger than
the United States, and inferior only in extent of
territory to•the prodigious Empires of Russia and
China. This immense country maintains at present
a population of probably less than B,ooo,ooo—re-
presenting three inhabitants to the square mile, or
about one-sixth of the proportion found even in
Sweden and Norway. The riches of the interior
may be said to be unexplored, for the population at
present is clustered on the coast almost as com-
pletely as in New Zealand or Australia. In one
particular the possible development of Brazilian
production is especially interesting. If it should
ever happen, as seems within the limits of specula-
tion, that we should resort to foreign countries for
supplies, not only of living animals, but of pre-
served meats, Brazil will furnish the chief ports of
trade. In that country meat, which is here becom-
ing dearer and dearer, is almost without value in the
market. Oxen are killed for their horns and hides,
as sheep were formerly slain in Australia for their
wool. The finest beasts are next to worthless ex-
cept for their skins and the tallow that may be ex-
tracted from their bodies. It is obvious that if any
method of preserving meat successfully should here-
after be discovered, the exports from Brazil may be
as valuable as those from Odessa or Dantsic. We
may come to import beef as freely as corn, and
to get cheap meat as surely and as regularly as we
get cheap bread. It need hardly be added, how-
ever, that considerations of this kind will never in-
duce a British Government to submit to wrongs; and
wrongs, as we have had good reason to know, are as
likely to be committed by a weak State as a strong
one. No Power in dealing with England must pre-
sume either upon its strength or its weakness. We
persuade ourselves that we are not very quick to take
offence, but if there is a wrong it must be redressed.
We repeat that we have no intention of opening
a controversy now closed, but the Brazilians may
be invited to observe that not even the peculiar
kindliness and sympathy with which Englishmen re-
gard them were sufficient to prevent a rupture when
grievances had been created. Brazil had many
friends in this business, perhaps not a few advocates,
and all that could be said for that country and urged
against England and her representatives was set'
forth to good purpose. Yet this did not avail, and
it is only now that a renewal of amicable relations
has been at length accomplished. The lesson should
not be lost in either country. If we allow that we
ourselves have something to remember, we may im-
press the same truth upon Brazil. The two States
ought to be the best friends in the world, and we are
using only the language of friends when we add that
we should rejoice to see the young empire escaping
from the risks and charges of war, and devoting its
energies and resources to the enterprises and
achievements of peace.

" THE SATURDAY REVIEW" ON MR. GLADSTONE'S
DOING IT RATHER TOO GINGERLY 1-Mr. Gladstone's
friends have lately been urging on him the neces-
sity of being exceedingly cautious. They have made
no secret of the causes of their alarm, and have very
freely explained to him and to the world that he is
apt to be irritable and indiscreet. He says the wrong
thing sometimes, and sometimes he says a great deal
too much. If only he will control himself, learn to
be civil and a little unmeaning, then they will look
on him with as much confidence as they now feel
admiration for him. his enemies, on the contrary,
hope that he will stumble into the pitfalls which fate
is supposed to be continually setting for him. Ac-
cordingly, his first public display in his new capa-
city as leader of the Commons and associate Pre-

infer has been anticipated with feelings of anxiety
and exultation. He has gone through the ordeal,
and acquitted himself to perfection. He made three
speeches at Glasgow in one day—one of them to a
Reform Society, and another in reply to an address
from an unascertained number of working men.
Here were two yawning pitfalls. He has before
tumbled into a very big hole on the subject of re-
form, and working men have suggested to him a
theoretical abyss about the burden of proof in re-
fusing or according universal suffrage, of which he
himself cannot pretend to measure the depth. But
he has gone over this dangerous ground with the
most triumphant safety. He was caution personi-
fied. What he said might have been said by Sir G.
Grey, or the Bishop of London, or perhaps by Mr.
Walpole himself. He touched on two delicate sub-
jects, and he touched on them so softly that at any
rate the Goddess of Prudence, if there still is one,
may claim him as her favourite child. He almost

carried caution to an extreme, and exaggerated it as
if for the fun and novelty of showing that he could
be as safe and enigmatical as the slowest Tory squire
that ever sat in the house. He gave his views on
Reform, and he gave his views on the Government
of Lord Russell. With regard to Reform, he ven-
tured to declare his settled conviction that although,
of course, disappointment might baffle human hopes
here as elsewhere, yet he believed that if Parlia-
ment took up the subject in the right spirit, and
acted boldly and yet wisely, it would arrive at a
result that would contribute to the happiness of all
classes of this great empire. Even the statesmen in
Sir Bulwer Lytton's novels make political declara-
tions from which more may be learnt than from this.
As to Earl Russell, he declared that the name of
that respected peer was its own guarantee, and he
surmised that, after living 73 honourable years, the
noble lord would be very unlikely to turn his back
upon himself, and show that he had unlearnt the
lesson of his whole career. This every one will
allow is exceedingly unlikely; and even the severest
and most hostile critic would be satisfied with know-
ing that it is as certain that Lord Russell has ever
learnt the lesson of his long career as that, if he has
learnt it, no mortal man will ever succeed in making
him think that what he has learnt is wrong. We
hope now the agitated public will be satisfied that
Mr. Gladstone can be cautious when he likes.
It is the beauty of the elephant's trunk that it
can either pick up a pin or rend a tree ; and it is
the excellence, as we now know, of Mr. Glad-
stone's intellect, that he can either convulse the House
of Commons by his utterances on Reform, denounce
Mr. Disraeli as if he were the vilest of mankind, and
provoke the hostility of countless societies, companies,
and boards by a single speech ; or else, at his plea-
sure, inform a gaping and admiring provincial audi-
ence, if listening to his words as they were a revela-
tion, that if Parliament passes a wise measure of
Reform, the measure it passes will most probably be
wise, and that Lord Russell's name is a sufficient
guarantee that Lord Russell's Government will be
carried on in the manner to be expected from Lord
Russell.

A brother of Mr. Jefferson Davis has arrived in
London, and taken apartments in the "foreigners' quar-
ter," in Leicester-square.