The Sun.
London, England, 1870-10-01 00:00:00

M. JULES FAVRE'S IMPORT.

The Telegraph considers the two facts of the moment
to be the recommencement of the Cabinet Councils, and
the issue of M. Jules Favre's detailed report on
his recent negotiations with Count Bismarck.
Those who have closely watched the proceedings
of our Government in its dealings with the bel-
ligerent Powers will scarcely anticipate direct action as
the result of yesterday's deliberations. M. Jules Favre's
account of his mission, however, certainly does not
encourage a lively hope that France will speedily apply
for a repeated employment of our friendly action.
The perusal of the document is strangely calculated
to awaken a mixed feeling, in which it might
be hard to say whether sympathy, or disapproval, or
regret had the largest share. The statement is that of an
honest man, even morbidly anxious to do the best for
his country, and thoroughly convinced as to the justice
of his cause. It is also, we must add, the produc-
tion of art intellect which appears utterly' in-
capable of seeing facts in their true light. M. Favre
bases his argument throughout on the assumption that
France, under her present regime, is the injured party in
the quarrel ; and that any attempt to hold her respon-
sible for the policy of the Empire is a crying sin
and shame. Throughout the report there rum, something
like the plaintive tone which a man might use if, after
he had offered everything that his antagonist could
possibly desire, he was suddenly informed that
all was not enongh. It would have been
better for France Bad M. Favre thought more
of fact and less of sentiment. We do not
say M. Favre was wrong in refusing the proposal,
continues the Telegraph, but we do say that it ought to
have been decided gravely, not rejected at once as inad-
missible. .
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In commenting upon M. Jules Favre's report of his
visit to the Prussian headquarters the Standard says :
—Let us say at once that we cannot accept nine-
tenths of AI. Jules Favre's postulates. His at-,
tempts to make the Dmperor entirely responsible
for the war, to stigmatise it as a war engaged in
solely for dynastic'- nterests and against the will of
the great bulk of the nation, deserves the contempt
with which it has always been treated by the Germans.
No doubt M. Jules Favre and his immediate
allies opposed the war, but it would be difficult
for any impartial critic of their opposition to deter-
mine whether a desire for the maintenance of peace,
or a wish to discredit and injure the Empire guided their
conduct. Accept, however, their plea of " not guilty,"
it is as beyond all doubt that the war was popular with
the majority of the nation as that the Government which
engaged in it represented by the best of all titles, in the
eye of a French Democrat, the popular vote of the nation.
But whilst we insist again, upon the frivoulsness
of the plea that France should not be held respon-
sible for the war and ought not to suffer for it because
it was declared by Napoleon the Third, and whilst
we must express our surprise that M. Favre and
his colleagues could find it consistent with
their own sense of honour to urge such a plea,
we must repeat, too, our opinion that the Prussian
Government has made—and that too assuming its con-
tinued successes—a fatal mistake in not negotiating with
the Government which, repudiating the war in its
original programme, could have made concessions which
will be impossible to any other Government, and which
France would have been ready to accept without arriere
pensee. All parties in France would have been glad to
get quit of a war upon which no one of them could have
looked back with any satisfaction, at the price of a heavy
indemnity and a practical reduction o: Strasburg and
Metz to the condition of open places, or fortresses of the
third-rate kind. Count Bismarck has refused to accept
these terms, which the Government of the National
Defence might have conceded. Treating, as he
has no doubt a ri ht to do, the present Govern-
ment upon the assumption that it represents the
nation, as equally responsible for the war with that
which it has superseded, he as rejected an oppor-
tunity which we are confident will not occur again. Pro-
bably enoagh the German armies may capture Paris;
that will not bring the German statesmen nearer the per-
manent peace they profess to desire.