The Sun.
London, England, 1871-02-13 00:00:00

THE PARIS REDS.

The correspondent of the Times in Paris is of opinion
that even now the Moderate party is not a little indebted
for its protection to the German armies that surround it.
Were it not for a salutary terror of the Prussian bayonet,
the ouvriers would long since have made a revolution in
the streets. Up to this period-they have contented them-
selves with demanding the execution of the Government.
" Nous demandons," said Citizen Gaillard the other night,
" contre le Gouvernement actuol la peine qu'entraine le
crime de la capitulation—la peine de mort." (Loud
cheers.) All the orators were in the same sense ; all de-
manded revolution, another overthrow, and some even
recommended the massacre of the bourgeoisie. Only
one, says a moderate paper, commenting upon the
proceeding of the audience, shewed good sense—a dog
which, by loudly barking, insisted upon interrupting a
revolutionary orator; it is needless to say he was ex-
pelled,

OFFENCES AGAINST INTERNATIONAL
MORALITY.

Sir Edward Strachey, writing to the Spectator in refe-
rence to a recent letter by Mr. E. A. Freeman in the Pall
Mall Gazette says :—I cannot doubt that Mr. Freeman,
in this demand for vengeance on France, the
ever-restless and aggressive Power, is expressing
the thought and feeling of many a wise and
good German, probably of a majority of such ;
and I look on this as a calamity greater than any other
which has come of this terrible war. France has
been a great offender, with her restlessness and
her aggressiveness, and Europe has suffered much
from her doings; but has she done us no
services too ? Has. she not fulfilled an important and
indispensable place, and done an important and indispen-
sable work in Europe and its civilisation? What would
Europe be without France, and without that very rest-
lessness which is but the excess of a noble energy? No one
will deny the restlessness and the aggression which the
French Revolution exhibited, nor the calamities which
these inflicted upon all Europe; but surely there was
not only good with the • evil, but good so indis-
pensable to all our social and political progress that
it was worth having even at the cost of the evil? And ou
the other hand, none of the other nations of Europe is"so
pure of national crime against the rest, that France should
be thus treated as an outlaw. International morality is
low enough, and war is one of the results of its feebleness ;
but being such as we are, it is idle to say that France is so
guilty beyond all other nations that she should, as far as
_ possible, be disabled from taking her wonted place among
them."

The inhabitants of Alsace and Lorraine, now at Bor-
deaux, have held a meeting, at which they unanimously
voted an address to the Government of National Defence,
protesting against any project of separating their country
from France.

It is pronounced as probable at Brussels that M.
Lacour, prefect of Lyons, is about to resign in consequence
of excessive fatigue, and that ho will be succeeded by M.
Valentin, who was appointed prefect of Strasbourg about
the 4th of September last.

- M.M. des Rotours having written a letter to the Pro-
curator of the Republic at Lille, in which he complained
of the seizure of his pamphlet, the Procurator has replied,
that he despised slanderous imputations, and that he
would neither prosecute him nor give him the explan-
ations he demanded.
The Brussels correspondent of the Pall Mall Gazette
writes : —Three and a half millions have again been voted
by the Chamber for extraordinary military expenditure.
The Belgian taxpayers will have to remember for a good
many years Napoleon 111., the Duke of Gramont, and
all those who wished to execute the " military promen-
ade" to Berlin.

--
The Moniteur says :—The spirit of order and the rare
sagacity which have presided over the magnificent gift of
the people of London are especially remarkable. The
English with great discernment have understood that the
necessitous class in Paris was not that which suffered the
most in the siege and the small tradesmen, the skilled work-
men and others of the kind should not be excluded from
the distribution.
The Wendel establishment, which is one of the most
important industrial works on the Moselle, has lost
800,000 francs by the Prussians. The greater part of the
rails which were in the workyards of Styring, near For-
bach, were seized by the Prussians for the construction, of
railways near Metz during the siege of that place. These
lots of rails included some which the Wendel house were
to send to some Belgian capitalists.
A correspondent of the Manchester Guardian, writing
from Havre, says :—Some persons believe that our
peasants are so much wanting in education that if the
names of Bismarck or Moltke had been placed
on a Conservative list these two gentlemen would
have been elected without opposition. The soldiers
quartered in this arrondissement have also vastly contri-
buted to swell the list of Orleanists and Bonapartists,
and principally the party of " peace at any price." The
Mobile Guards have distinguished themselves by voting
for the cessation of the war, and it is even asserted that
the higher officers share that opinion.'
The Independance Beige says that it has received com-
munications from many of the French refugees in Brus-
sels complaining that they cannot send help or provisions
to their friends and relations in Paris. In reply to these
the Belgian journal states that in spite of the armistice
no arrangement has yet been made for the dispatch of