The Sun.
London, England, 1870-05-20 00:00:00

UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE IN OPERATION.

A very interesting letter appears in the Daily News
from a writer who has travelled through France in the
midst of the Plebiscite agitation, and who personally wit-
nessed the style in which the great universal suffrage
machine—the " basis " of the Empire—was set to work.
He commences by describing the crass ignorance of poli-
tical affairs, the absolute lack of political ideas, which
prevails throughout the rural population. The
mental darkness is Egyptian. Not only is
no newspaper printed, but none even circu-
late, far from the neighbourhood of the great towns.
The natural remedy for this state of things would of
course be the active dissemination of- cheap books and
periodicals bearing in some degree on what is actually
passing in the world in which these people live. Such
books and periodicals are actually prepared by some of
the leading French Liberals, such as Jules Favre, Jules
Simon, and others. But the Government takes care that
they never reach the country districts. Every printer,
every bookseller, every hawker, requires a special brevet
or licence, in order to carry on his trade. Now, it has
been calculated that for the exercise of a " brevet de
libraire " with any chance of prosperity, a town of
at least six or eight thousand inhabitants would be neces-
sary. In this case the natural course would be for
books and periodicals to be sold by village traders who
carry on other business. In France, as in England,
the village shopkeeper is at once grocer, mercer, dealer in
hardware, and so forth. But though, generally, he may
deal in what he pleases, he dares not venture to sell
printed matter. For this he must have a brevet, which
would not be worth his while ; or, if it was, would cer-
tainly be refused. -Any large bookseller, on the other
hand, who might try to establish a system of travellers,
would be checked as interfering with the rights of the
"colporteurs " or book hawkers. The licensed
book hawker is, in fact, the only lawful book-
seller •in the country ; but he is permitted to sell
no publication which has not been regularly stamped with
the approval of the Administration. What kind of books,
therefore, are carried through the country districts can be
imagined. The French peasant knows little of anything :
of politics least of all.. Ignorance is everywhere. When
the Administration wants the rural mind to know
anything, it goes to work with placards and posters
and all the village walls are at its disposaL
The writer continues his story thus :—"Your journals
have dwelt upon the fact of the very opportune publica-
tion of M. Grandperret's terrific narrative of the Plot ; '
but the mode in which this celebrated document has
been conveyed to the rural mind here has not, I believe,
yet been explained. The, report was published in
Paris on Thursday evening (sth instant), and
was reproduced in every newspaper in France by
Saturday—the day before the vote. But, simultaneously
with its publication in Paris, M. Grandperret's narrative,
in the form of a huge special supplement of the Moniteur,
printed on one side only—in fact, as a poster was pasted
on the walls of every village and little town in
the Empire. I first saw this inflammatory imperial
advertisement at Etaples, in the Pas de Calais. I saw
it last in Ferney (famous to all who have ever heard of
Voltaire) within ten minutes' drive of the Swiss fron-
tier. As to the vote in the rural communes, the whole
ceremonv has been_entirelv destitntp
aganis —coercion or rne-p.,— of Government
partisans, which' I concede to be practically in opera-
tion in all great cities. In the country the mayor,
adjoint, or his nominee, who is the legal president,
has almost invariably been assisted by assessors, equally
devoted to the Imperialist cause, and in fact chosen
beforehand by himself. So slow is the voting in such
places, that these enthusiastic Imperialists are left
absolutely alone with the ballot-box fifty times during
a day. Nor is the rural voter protected by
anything like secresy. The Government voting
paper must be handed to the president, and, as already
pointed out, is easily distinguishable even when
folded. I will undertake to say that there is not a
rural commune in France in which the local authorities
do not perfectly well know who had the temerity to vote
Non' on Sunday week. The only true remedy for this
would be for the Government to print both Ouis ' and
Nons ' on precisely the same paper of an opaque kind.
But so far from this being the case, the very attempt to
distribute opposition bulletins in the rural districts has
been met with the most resolute repression. I myself saw
voters driven from the voting
.place of a rural district
at the time of the scrutiny, in direct violation of the
law, which requires that act to be done in public. The
judgment of the great cities is ominous for the future of
Imperialism ;• but after all the numerous tokens of dis-
affection in the army are the gravest facts of the Plebis-
chary vote. If the rural voter has not been free, it is
easy to judge what must have been the degree of freedom
of the soldier compelled to vote within his barrack, with
closed doors, and without any of those checks in the way
of assessors which the Constitution has prescribed. But
there is no disguising the fact. The army now comprises
a great and a growing element of dissatisfaction with Im-
perial rule. The Government have never yet dared to
publish details of the military vote. They prefer to give
the result in a lump, and upon data open to the gravest
suspicion. At first a few indiscreet persons did indeed
give the results in certain garrisons, but this
proceeding was almost immediatly stopped by
orders from high authority. We know,. how-
ever, already that - more than one garrison,
in spite of the extraordinary precautions to which
I have alluded, ventured to return a majoilty
of Noes ! The garrison at Le Havre was one of these.
Again, at Douai the foot Chasseurs, who only number
700, gave 334 votes against the Empire. The 20th
battalion at Boulogne, 618 strong, dropped into the
ballot-box 238 " nons," while we all know that 1133 of
the 2,555 soldiers in the famous barrack of the Prince
Eugene—the central point of the recent disturbances—
replied to the invitation to return an answer to the ple-
biscite with the same terribly ominous monosyllable.
Factgof this kind were beginning to be piiblished on the
evening of Sunday and the morning following ; but the
telegraphs went to work, and from that time the
" Scrutins partiels " of the army have entirely disappeared
both from the provincial and the Parisian journals.
Perhaps in such cases as I have cited the superior
officers, who reign supreme over the military
ballot-boxes, failed to testify the zeal generally
expected of them ; for it is notorious that the
discontent in the army extends sometimes to high grades.
This is the fact to which that remarkable address to the
soldiers, already quoted in your columns, alludes in these
words—" If your officers do not any more than you allow
their sentiments to appear, they have as little cause as you
have to rejoice over Imperialism. Is advancement
never other than the reward of merit and services ? "
The facts reported from Lyons on this subject
are significant. To this hour the authorities have never
ventured to give us the result of the military scrutiny in
that great city, so famous for its insurrectionary spirit.
And yet if the old " Croix Rousse " should once more
send down its famished weavers to fight in the narrow,
tortuous streets that lead to that classic height of Demo-
cratic Socialism, these soldiers must be the men to restore
?eace and the Imperial rule.

Prince Napoleon is about to quit Paris to visit th
Suez Canal.

The .Northern Daily Express understands that Mr.
Candlish M.P. for Sunderland, with his son-in-law, Mr.
Allen, N P. for Newcastle-under-Lyne, have been ap
pointed members of a deputation from the Evangelical
Alliance of this country to visit America, and that they
will proceed thither in the autumn.
DAMAGE TO TELEGRAPH INSULATORS.—SeVeraI
persons have lately been punished for wilfully breaking
the insulators on telegraph posts. At Leicester three
men were sentenced to hard labour ; at Nottingham two
boys had the option of fine or imprisonment ' • at High
Wycombe one boy was fined; and at Castle Eden, in
Durham, two colliers were fined forty shillings each and
costs.

THE BUILDING AND HOSIERY TRADES IN
NOTTINGHAM—There is at present a strike going on
among the bricklayers of Nottingham. For some time
past there has been a great inquiry for houses in and near
the town. Consequentlybuildinghas progressed vigorously,
and the demand for bricklayers has consider--
ably increased. Owing to this and to the
time lost during the winter, the workmen haire applied
to their employers for an advance of one farthing
per hour. Some of the masters conceded the demand, but
many of them refused to pay the advance, and the conse-
quence is that a large number of workmen are now on
strike. There is also a dispute between the framework-
knitters and their employers. There was a dispute about
a reduction which the masters proposed making. An
arbitrator was called • but it would appear that the work-
men are not disposed be satisfied with his decision,