The Sun.
London, England, 1870-10-04 00:00:00

'1 HE SUS, LONDON, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1870

dealing with them. A military romance of the first
empire is to be published in this journal.
It will be given to ui from the Imperial Cabinet
and is to be is the opposite sense from those political
romances which the Opposition publishes against the
army. The accounts of public meetings are also impor-
tant, as are the discussions upon them, which the Peuple
and Patrie are specially selected for. Four editors,MM. Be
hagel, Vitu, Aurelien Scholl, and Adrien Marx, are charged
with this department. A circular has been addressed to the
prefects, desiring them to return the names of the
estabishments and houses where a gratuitous distribu-
tion of papers would be useful, and by this means
the papers can be sent direct from the offices without
either the Ministry or the prefecture appearing. The
Peuple offers- to -send, from Ist May to Ist June, 18,000 free
copies daily for a sum of 60,000 f. The Patrie will send
them at 1251. per thousand, being much dearer. Another
sum of 100,0001. will therefore be required on the most
moderate computation. The sum total of 200,000 f. may
seem considerable, but it is less than the amounts given
from political passion or personal ambition by the
Opposition. Publicity will have so much to do with future
elections that the printing presses of Paris are already
insufficicient for the orders received. The Conservative
party is, as usual, indolent, and leaves the Government
the task of defending it. Influence on the Parisian press,
which is always so difficult to obtain,
requires a support, and this support is to
be found in the certainty that the Government
is disposed to make sacrifices for those who serve it.
Material assistance greatly enhances moral influence, and
many defections and desertions might have been avoided
if satisfaction had been given to certain interests
or personal wishes. If the latter asserti
needed confirmation,, proof would be found in
the agreement made with the Figaro. This
agreement, of which the Minister himself arranged
all the details, promises excellent results. It was one of
the chief concerns of the service, and the attitude of the
writers which direct this journal are almost beyond expec-
tation. With La France, Peuple, Patrie, Constitotionnel,
Public, Pays, and Dix-Decembre, the Government presents
itself to the elections at the head of a number
of organs of different character and spirit, but
all strongly attached to dynastic principles. Daily
communications are kept up with them. Every day eight
or ten editors come to receive instructions from the
Minister, and during the electoral period the service is
ready to publish every day; in Paris as well as in the
departments, whatever the Ministry may require.
The instruments are ready. They will promptly
obey the guiding impulse. The Siecle, in commenting
on this extraordinary report, observes that it confirms its
previous apprehensions. "We know now why the Figaro
was always ready to support the police. We have
only the names of four journalists given, it is true,
but we have the names of a good many papers.
One of these editors, M. Viter, is still chief
editor of the Peuple Francais, one of the papers mentioned.
After this public exposure will not the Peuple Francais
and its editor alike find it desirable to escape into oblivion?
The report is yet incomplete, but it shews how the
Minister in the secrecy of his Cabinet concluded the bar-
gains which the secret funds paid for. It remains to be
seen whether we are to know the whole truth respecting
these deplorable transactions."

THE EMPEROR'S GOOD FAITH TOWARDS

ENGLAND.

One of the documents which the Imperialists most im-
prudently left behind them on their flight from Paris is
published in the official paper of the Republic, as testi-
mony to the secret designs of the Emperor. It is undated,
and runs thus : " If France should place herself boldly
upon the ground of nationality, it will be proper from this
time to shew that there does not exist any Belgian na-
tionality and to settle that essential point with Prussia.
The Berlin Cabinet appearing to be disposed to enter
into arrangements which it would suit France to accept,
I it will be necessary to negotiate a secret undertaking
which shall bind both parties. Without pretending that
such a document would be perfectly safe, it would possess
the double advantage of compromising Prussia and of
being to her a guarantee of the sincerity of the policy and
the intentions of the Emperor. It is right that we should
not conceal from ourselves, when the characters of the
King of Prussia and of his Prime Minister are known,
that the latest diplomatic incidents and the present
tendency of public opinion in France must have
strengthened their conviction that we have not aban-
doned the idea of asserting our right to the fron-
tier of the Rhine. In order to be certain to obtain a
confidence which is necessary to the maintenance of an in-
timate understanding, we must devote our efforts to
dissipate apprehensions which have been entertained
n connection with that eventuality—apprehensions which
have again been excited by our latest communications
This result cannot be brought about by words. A docu-
ment will be required, and one which would comprise the
settlement of the future fate of Belgium in concert with
Prussia, by proving at Berlin that the Emperor looks
elsewhere than towards the Rhine for the extension that
has become necessary to France since the recent events in
Germany, will afford us, at least, a comparative certainty
that the Prussian Government will oppose no obstacle to
our aggrandisement."

THE FALL OF STRASBUE,G.

The correspondent of the Standard, writing from

Rouen on the 29th September, says :—After post hours

yesterday afternoon the news of the fall of Strasburg was
officially posted up ; it caused great excitement—all the
greater from the news having been contradicted up to the
very last hour. Groups of people congregated on the
Cours Boieldieu to discuss the news, but after the fashion
of the French the discussion turned on the question
whether tha Strasburgers were or were not justified in
surrendering. The practical importance of this fresh
success of the Prussians appeared to be altogether overlooked.
The worthy Rouennais,who a 1.,: very English in their unde-
monstrativeness, appear to be more than English in their
ignorance of geography, and the practical value of the
possession of Strasburg by the enemy was wholly lost
sight of, while the "moral effect " of the surrender was
enlarged upon to an unlimited extent. That Strasburg
should have surrendered is not to be wondered at under
any circumstances, but it would appear that
the gallant city would have held out but for the fact of
the stock of ammunition having been thoroughly ex-
hausted. The garrison obtained the honours of war, but
officers and men are now prisoners, and the loss of 17,000
men and a general of Uhrich's stamp is, under pre-
sent circumstances, a severer loss to the French than the
loss of the fortress itself. When M. Jules Favre went to
Prussian head-quarters last week, it is highly probable
that if he had suspected that Strasburg would have
surrendered within a fornight, he would not have objected
to the proposal of Bismarck that Strasburg, Toul,
and Verdun should be given up as the preliminary
to an armistice, for as you will have seen by the
detailed report of the French Foreign Secretary's
interview with Bismarck, the latter waived the
clause about Mont Valerien. The force which was
detained before Strasburg will now be free either to
reinforce the army under the walls of Paris, or to
move on Lyons—a movement more political than strategi-
cal, and which may have very serious consequences. Such
is the disgust felt in the city of grotesque tyranny of the
half-dozen demagogues who have been ruling that city for
the last three weeks without acknowledging the authority
of any Government whatever, that much as the
Lyonnese abhor the Prussians, even the Prussians
would be welcome if they rescued them from the anarchy
from which they are now suffering. Contrary to expec-
tation, we have as yet no details of the latest balloon
mail from Paris. The news has gone on to Tours, but
nothing has transpired beyond the bald statement of its
being satisfactory, and of the Prussians having been
driven from some of the positions they occupied. They
do not appear to have been driven from St. Cloud or
Menden, as their batteries in the park have been able
to damage ene of the gunboats on its way up the river.
It is not easy to understand why the French have not
built counter batteries on the right bank of the
Seine—as the Bois de Boulogne, the town of
Boulogne itself, and Billancourt offer plenty of cover :
a mortar battery planted, for instance, at the entrance of
the main street of Boulogne, would not be easily silenced,
and would greatly molest the batteries established
in the Park of St. Cloud, close to the river's
bank. I am sorry to say that the inference which the
absence of such precautions leads to is, there must be a
scarcity of material, or an equally important dearth of
trained gunners. We are anxiously awaiting the im-
pression which the news of the fall of Strasburg must
have produced in Paris. The Government—Gen. Trochu
at all events—must have been fully prepared for it, but
the population had been taught to believe that Strasburg
would hold out another month. I have the greatest re-
spect for M. Jules Favre personally, but I must saythat
it is deeply to be regretted, for the sake of France, that
there is not an experienced diplomatist just now at the
head of the French Foreign Office. An experienced
diplomatist would not fail to communicate with the
friendly Powers, and point out that it would be desir-
able to know what it is Prussia requires. M.
de Bismarck stated that he wanted Strasburg,
Toul, and Phalsburg, or Verdun. Ile has got both
Strasburg and Toul. What are his views? Does he
mean to carry on the war until he gets an assurance
from France that she will submit to the loss of Alsace and

Lorraine ; and will the neutral Powers be base enough,
mean enough, and cowardly enough, to stand by and
look on while . France is being treated like Poland
An experienced diplomatist would ascertain all that,
and elicit from the neutral Powers a statement of
their views, and I can hardly suppose that to re-
frain from passing an opinion on the subject her
Majesty's Minister would descend o the ineffable
meanness of demurring to stating officially their
opinion on. the ground that they have not yet
formally recognised the new Government in France.
M. Favre, however, is not used to diplomatic
business ; he is too much swayed by his feelings to be able
to discuss the qnestions at issue calmly. He is too de-
spondent, because possibly ignorant of the resources and
recuperative powers of the country, and too deeply imbued
with the ideathat Paris is France. I sincerely trust for the
sake of this great, unhappy, and much maligned country
that should there be further negotiations they will be con-
ducted by General Trochu, whom we may suppose to be
horoughly well informed as to the military situation. But
in any case I think it must now be plain, even to your
correspondent at Prussian head-quarters, that Paris
will hold out even at the risk of what he calls her
" trumpery finery," by which I presume we are
to understand the Louvre, the Imperial Library,
the Luxembourg, the Museum of Cluny, and the
hundred other repositories of art and science, being
destroyed, and if the spirit of Normandy pervades the
rest of the country, Prussia may find that to subdue a
country determined to preserve its independence is harder
work than to achieve such triumphs as the capitulation of
Sedan.

A CHARGE AGAINSr EARL GRANVILLE.
Earl Granville, in his note to Count Bernstorff, on
the 15th instant, states that " the Royal ' commission
who' " (sic in orig.) " inquired into the neutrality laws
in 1867, decided that to prohibit the export' (sic in
orig.) of munitions of war was impracticable and
impolitic." We have carefully examined the
"Report of the Neutrality Laws' Commissioners" referred
to, which was presented to both Houses of the British
Parliament by command of Queen Victoria, in 1868, and
we find in it no such decision as that attributed to these
"eminent juriconsults " by Earl Granville. Their
report does not contain one word on the sub-
ject of the prohibition of the exportation of muni-
tions of war ! If we acquit his lordship of the
deliberate intention to mislead Count Bernstorff and
the public, it is our duty at least to expose the
gross mis-statement made by the Foreign Office. It is
singular enough that Earl Granville's reference to the
report in question supplies us with an additional argu-
ment in support of the remonstrances of North-Ger-
many ; for at page 48 of an appendix to the report
we have found a very clear• exposition of the laws in force
in France, with reference to the exportation of arms and
munitions of war from that country. The information
must be considered authentic, having been supplied to th
British Government by Monsieur de Moustier, in his capa-
city of Minister of Foreign Affairs, under date of February
26, 1867. It appears from the official documents communi-
cated by M. de Moustier that " the exportation and transit
of arms and munitions of war to belligerents are strictly pro-
hibited, and infractions of the law severely punished."
Had Great Britain followed the practice of France, the
grievous infractions of neutrality of which North Ger-
many complains would not have occurred. The popu-
lation of France would not have been supplied
with hundreds of thousands of rifles for the slaughter of
our citizen soldiers. For the death-roll we hold Great
Britain responsible. In conclusion, we would observe that
France could not, with any show of reason, have com-
plained of Great Britain acting according to the rules of
French law, and Earl Granville's plea of unfairness is a
mere transparent subterfuge. —North German Corre-
spondent.