The Sun.
London, England, 1853-01-26 00:00:00

THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH PRESS

(Peony the "Weekly Dispatch—)

MR. EDITOR,—It is useless to disguise the part
which the press plays, and must play, in the con-
cerns of the world. Aike all other powers, it must
look to be slandered, and its answer to libels must
be its own conduct. It is built upon the right to
make all facts and opinions known, and can only
put down perversions with the clear statement of
truth. It is the public opinion embodied and
expressed in the most wonderful organization of
mind and material means ever yet brought to
bear ; and its final result ought to be, that, by the
comparison of all statements and all reasonings, the
world may become one well-instructed Parliament;
deciding all disputes by the authority of truth and
reason. If it does not eventually become this
great tribunal, it will be because it betrays its
office, and I look to this much-to-be-desired con-
summation, because it is the plainest way of show-
ing its present duties.
Just now the French Moniteur is accusing the
English press of exciting an enmity between the
two nations. It chooses as its examples the
• Morning Chronicle, the Times, and the Morning
Advertiser—an odd conjunction in the estimation of
our public. Of course, the injuries complained of
are attacks upon the Imperial Court and Govern-
ment. The Moniteur affects to quote from the
more important of the English authorities the fol-
lowing worth :—"A Senate more cowardly (lade)
than that of Tiberius has given to the Emperor the
maost exorbitant power, and destroyed by a single
blow all the guarantees which remained to the na-
• iiiion. Favourites gorged with honours, functiona-
ries
without a conscience, unheard-of exactions and
crimes—such is the Goverment. But chastisement
is preparing • already Europe is on the alert, and
the year will; not pass over without something ter-
rible breaking forth." Now herein is just the mo-
dicum of truth which would make some believe in
the whole assertion. The Times, in a very mis-
placed and gratuitous sentence, did liken the French
Senate to that of Tiberius, not, perhaps to the ad-
vantage of the former. I remember being struck,
in the perusal of the day's paper, with a sense of
needless provocation. But the sentence given in
the Moniteur is atrociously garbled, and the most
offensive part of it is altogether invented. What
ought to be said of the Moniteur, the official organ
of the French Government, whose leading articles
are supposed to be inspired, if not written by Louis
Napoleon himself, when, in denouncing other
journals for writing that which may lead to disturb
a good understanding, it forges itself a direct pro-
vocative to war ? If Louis Napoleon be really the
author of the passage in question, there is no doubt
whatever that it is his design to plead, at his con-
venience, a threat against the French nation, as a
motive for taking up arms to defend it. Ido not
hesitate to say that the entire sentence, threatening
" chastisement," is an utter fabrication. Ido not
believe that any journal representing any ap-
preciable portion of public opinion in this
country, has ever tended towards the idea of
a Pforeign. interference with the affairs of France
—of a foreign sympathy, avenging any do-
mestic party, or any domestic wrong. If there
has been one idea, universally predominant,
strangely fitting itself to the views of all English
factions, it has been that France ought to be left
•
at the fullest liberty to settle its own Government
at its own will, and that we have nothing to call in
question but its external actions, and the policy
that may lead to them. The acknowledgment of
the Empire, instantaneous and unreserved as it has
• been, was quite as much the act of the entire people
as of the Ministry, a homage paid by our states-
men to the general will rather than any decision of
their own. Any renewal of the madness of 1793
has been most repugnant to the convictions, the
experience, the feelings of every politician through-
put the land, and a falser libel upon British inten-
tions or desires could not be put forth than the no-
tion of " chastisement" for the deeds which France
may think proper to act within her own territories.
Such a provocation, and I speak as a jealous
watcher, has certainly never been put forward by
the Times.
If, then, the forgery is the deliberate device of
the Imperial Government, we must look to the
effects to which it directly leads. The Government
may be desirous enough to identify itself with all
France in a common wrong, real or pretendad.
Louis Napoleon has certainly been looked upon
with the greatest distrust by the English press,
and he has been subject to the severest censures,
some necessary and dignified, some petulant and
outrageous - some taking the easy occasion for the
exhibition of much effective rhetoric in the style of
clever young gentlemen discussing, in their orato-
rical class, the assassination of Ciesar by Brutus.
Of this latter description would have been the let-
ters of an "Englishman," published in the Times,
had they been written by an Englishman at all ;
and not, as I conjecture, by a refugee, eloquent
beyond the greater number of gifted men, and
burning to identify English resentment with the
wrongs of his own country. But all these have
been launched at Louis Napoleon and his adher-
ents ; in no instance has France been attacked, in
no instance insulted, unless, perhaps, by pity. The
English press has always treated the French nation
as oppressed and grieved, and its last thought would
have been that of avenging that nation's sufferings,
. real or supposed, enforced or voluntary, upon itself.
When the result of the last "plebiscite " was made
known, even this ground was given up. France
had either accepted or condoned the deeds of the
2d of December; and all who were rational among,
our public writers, if they wondered at the deci-
sion, felt bound to bow to it. Thenceforth they ani-
madverted in a totally different strain. They cri-
ticised public acts and schemes, exactly as they
would treat measures propounded by their own
Government according to their value and worth-
lessness, and they mainly considered English in-
terests in the consequences likely to result from
such proceedings. Some journals, of course, con-
tinued a vulgar strain of abuse because their readers
might be excited and amused by it • but such pub-
lications have no more to do with the formation or
direction of any effectual public opinion, than the
poet who furnishes the tragedies to Richard son's
company, or the gentleman who exhibits
the monuments in Westminster Abbey. If,
then, the French Government would desire to
impress upon the French nation, that the nation is
the object of threats or of abuse from the. English
press, or from the English people, the falsehood
can only be propagated with the intention of stir-
ring up hatred, of identifying the people with the
empire in one common apprehension of the British
power and resentment against it, of securing popu-
larity in France by raising the spirit of war against
England. How base, how murderous, how detes-
table such a course would be, needs no remark to
show ; but unless the Moniteur can disconnect
itself from the French Government, or can tell us
how it has fallen upon quotations which never ex-
, isted in the original, this is the stigma which it,
perforce, brings upon its master.
It is still the duty of the English press, and this
article in the Moniteur most emphatically shows it,
while it abstains from comment or uses it with the
most dignified calmness, to give full attention to
facts, and to be keenly alive to their natural re-
sults. There are some indications, which, quite
apart from passion or pre-occupation are tho-
roughly unmistakeable. The confiscation of the
Orleans property was one of these. It struck at
the very basis of right, and the effect throughout
Europe was one of profound reprehension and
alarm. Lately we have had the establishment of a
bank of "credit mobilier," empowered to raise
eight times its paid-up capital by the emission of
paper, that it may lend upon inconvertible securi-
ties. No experienced merchant's clerk in London
can misinterpret such an act as that. Fro would,
indeed, be deeply concerned for the honour of his
employer's name, if it should appear as connected
with such a scheme. A 'Government promoting
suck plans may take its choice of being called dupe
or accomplice ; but at once it forfeits confidence,
and thinking men calculate mainly upon what it
will do to, avert the consequences which all forsee
—whether it will endure the storm it shall have
raised at home, or whether it will seek to conjure
it by directing its lightnings abroad. Again, we
have two significant facts which should be taken in
conjunction. France, with no intercourse with
Auierica which is not now well provided for is
about to devote 600,0001. a-year to promoting
the establishment of a commercial pacl:et fleet,
to steam between Cherbourg and the western con-
tinent. This latter idea ic, indeed, questioned, time
only will show if it be true or false. I will hope the
•
latter. Cherbourg is a war port—a
—a Port-mouth, not a
Bordeaux
Southampton ; and Havre and are the
real seats of commerce. Let it be frankly admitted
that France has every right to provide its naval
reserve by the means which are so effective in Eng-
land, the creation or encouragement of a mercantile
navy. Let us believe that France may be as ap-
preliensive for its shores as we justly are for the
perfect security of our ONVII. It is not every step
towards naval efficiency in France that should alarm
us. But herein is, at least, preparation for con-
test. Let us look a little further. Our own budget
tells to all the world what we intend to do. It is
beyond the competence of our Ministry to take
,<-1811naRbY d. for one purpose
r,,-aifother Jai lately the sam© practic h.
and apply them to
prevailed
pir \
,1 giii_biag .:But it is expressl proviededasin- the new
P. 1::j eta _9,16
.4 t* constitution, tllt what the Govern-
, ..... ,
,ntes,et Moose to save upon one item, it may
,-Ttl :ap e7ro any other. The gross sum is its own
". I &.",*' ' , 4ted. If, therefore, we pee a million'
I, -: , . ."'
1 ,z ted to railways, while there is in -/.,, ' minution in army expenses, there
-114Thkire ec "ty, for France or for us, that