The Sun.
London, England, 1856-01-12 00:00:00

TUB GOVELuNMENT I N FRANCE.

The Moniteur of yesterday publishes in very promi-
nent type the following remarkable article :
" Tie constitution of the people is not only the gua-
rantee of its rights, the result of its civilisation, and the
expression of its habits (mteurs): it is also the mechanism
of its Government in the ensemble, and the details of the
machinery of which it is composed. 'When the legisla-
tor has organised the authorities (les pouvoirs), regulated
their functions, defined th© connecting links that unite
them, and marked the limits which separate them, it is
on the rigorous precision of each of them in the general
performance of the functions of which they are the agents
that depend order, activity, and unity in the process of
the administration and in the direction of public affairs.
"This all-important precision, which alone can give t
a Government all its powers to do good, is not imme-
diately obtained in the construction of anew constitution;
there are inveterate traditions which resist the most im-
perious applications of the principles which condemn
them, and of the necessities which transform them. Pro-
gress, in all things, is not attained in a day ; it is the
laborious and slow conquest of perseverance and time.
However adapted a constitution may be to the habits
and to tse interests of the country of which it is the law,
however evident may appear the truth of its principles,
the new powers which it creates are always involun-
tarily drawn into borrowing something from the ancient
powers they have replaced. Before thoroughly under
standing the importance they must derive from the
functions proper to them, they endeavour to revive the
customs by which their predecessors had founded the
authority of their prerogatives.
"This is what happened with the senate in the applica-
tion of the constitution of the 15th of January, 1852.
The two charters of 1814 and 1830 had made the Cham-
ber of Peers simply a second Chamber of Deputies. With
a different origin, their functions were nearly the same.
Under that regime the two Assemblies which sat at the
Palais Bourbon and the Luxembourg were simply
the double representation of a Parliamentary oligarchy
in two branches, one of which pretended to represent
the people, the other the aristocracy ; but, in reality,
neither the one nor the other corresponded to the people,
which did not name its deputies, or to the higher classes,
which did not find in the peerage the reflection of their
power, of their traditions, and of their interests. The
actual constitution, on the contrary, distinctly separated
what the charters of 1814 and 1830 confounded. It de-
sired that each of the powers which it instituted should
have an independent, so as to have a useful task. By
giving to the Emperor the authority and the responsibi-
lity of the Government it gave to all the agents charged
to second him, Ministers, Council of State, Legislative
Corps, and Senate, the different functions which, by a
catenation as simple as it is logical, allows each of them,
in his sphere of power and action, to take part in public
affairs, and to work for the order, greatness, and safety
of the country.
" This constitution, which is less the work of a man
than the work of experience and time, ordains, combines,
and defines all things in the simplest manner possible.
It gives to the executive power its independence and its
force, by associating the duty of governing to the privi-
lege of reigning. It makes the Ministers the direct
agents of the Crown, the highest and most honoured
auxiliaries of the Emperor's Sovereignty. By their side
it places the Council of State to second them, to solve
the difficulties of administration, to fix its principles, to
prepare and support the laws they propose. It gives to
the Legislative Corps the vote of the laws and taxes.
Finally, it concedes to the Senate the initiative, and
intrusts to it the guardianship of all the principles and
all the interests of which it is the embodiment and gua-
rantee.

" The intention of the legislator of 1852, is easily pene-
trated in this very simple mechanism, where everything
is managed to produce harmony from which order and
power result, and to prevent conflicts which give rise
to revolutions.

" The legislator of 1852 had, in fact, a double object
in view—the first, to free the Government from Parlia-
mentary tutelage, and to render the administration quick
and easy by leaving the management Of affairs exclu-
sively to the Ministers ; the second, to create an inde-
pendent legislative body by having it appointed by uni-
versal suffrage, by assuring to it the most perfect liberty
of discussion in the vote of the laws and of the budget,
and by not admitting any public functionary into its
body. Only the constitution regulates the right of
amendment, and it takes from the Deputies to give to
the Senate the right of initiative, which was but too fre-
quently the sudden inspiration of party spirit and local
interest.

An executive power strong enough to do good with•
out being impeded, a legislative power independent
enough to be useful without being dangerous—much is
the double problem which the constitution of 1854 pro-
posed to itself to solve.

"But, while the Ministers, absorbed by their daily
task, are incessantly occupied with the great interests of
the country, and while, seconded by the Council of State,
they provide fur the wants of the administration and
legislation, another power exercises functions exclusive
of them, and gives to the Government the aid of its
wisdom and great experience ; that power is the Senate,
The constitution wished that there should be a body of
men matured by practice in the highest affairs, having
belonged, and still belonging, to the army, the magis-
tracy, politics, diplomacy, industry, science, and litera-
ture ; a permanent and independent body. which, in the
interval of its sessions, would have sufficient time to
travel through the country and gather information re•
specting its wants, and afterwards prepare projects of
law to meet them. It wished that by means of this local
investigation by each of its members, with the influence of
his position, this body should continually be able to en-
lighten the Government on the moral and material state
of society. It wished, in a word, that the Senate should
be placed so high in the constitutional hierarchy, and in
a sort of independence towards the other powers and
towards the Government simply to point out with more
authority to the Emperor's solicitude all that may contri-
bute to the glory of his reign and to the progress of civi-
lisation.
" Has the Senate itself fully understood all the im-
portance of so high a mission ? Has it allowed itself,
perhaps, to be dominated by the souvenirs and customs
of the ancient Peerage ? Only similar things must be
compared. Now there is not any analogy between these
two institutions. If the Senate was only like the Peer-
age, a branch of the legislative power, it would have far
fewer prerogatives than that assembly, for it does not
possess, as it did, the right of discussing and voting the
laws. The Chamber of Peers can remodel the laws by
remodelling the speeches made at the Tribune of the
Palais Bourbon. But the Senate would be devoting it-
self to a fruitless labour, consequently one without autho-
rity, by discussing what it has not a right to change un-
less on grounds of unconstitutionality. Its task is limited
to verifying the general character of the projects sent to
it from the legislative body in the pint of view of the
fundamental principles of which it is the guardian. Its
prerogatives are not those of the Peerage ; they are
different ; but they are far more numerous, more serious,
more elevated.

" The Senate is above all things a great political and
moral power. The legislator of 1852, in instituting it,
did not wish to make it the feeble image of another in-
stitution, which be:ongs to history. He wished to create
a body suited to the Government which he founded, and
to our social condition, such as it came forth from the
French Revolution. He gave to this body a part as ele-
vated as it is important. In regular and calm times it
may suggest all the great measures of public utility ;
hears the petitions of the citizens ; it examines the situas
tion of the country ; it investigates its wants ; it studies
the perfecting of its organisation ; it points out useful
reforms ; it proposes real improvements. In extraordi-
nary times it may, like the ancient Parliaments, stop
the ruling power when it goes astray ; it watches over
the safety of the country, the integrity of its territory,
over the respect for the national pact, over the mainten-
ance of all the principles and all the interests of society.
"That this part may stand as high in the opinion of
the country as it has been made important and privileged
in the will of the author of the constitution, the. Senate
has only to enter resolutely into the spirit of its high
mission. It depends upon itself to render its leisure time
more useful than were the labours of the assembly whose
place it occupies at the Luxembourg. It is, moreover,
with a calculated intention that the constitution of 1852
gave it time. Time is the study, the observation, the
reflection, the incessant investigation of everything
which the moral condition of the people requires, of its
welfare, of the interests of agriculture, of the develop
ments of labour and of credit, of the prosperity and
safety of France. Time fur statesmen is the power to
seek the good, to discover it, to prepare it, to propose
it, to defend it, to accomplish it. Time is what was
wanting to Parliamentary assemblies, that which is still
wanting, and ever will be wanting to Ministers over-
whelme with so many cares and responsibilities. What
greater strength could be given to an assembly which,
having the right of initiation, has the power to realise
all that is really useful ?
"Thus, to resume the description of the constitution,
the Emperer governs by means of his Ministers. These
latter have the Council of State as a vigilant fellow la-
bourer. A full and free control is exercised by the
Legislative Corps. Finally, by the side of the Govern-
ment sits the Senate ; while all the other powers and the
Emperor himself are absorbed by the innumerable ques-
tions of each day, and by the immense cares of the home
and foreign policy, it never quits its task of observation
except to ascend to its task of high protection over all
the interests of society. A moderator of the government
if it becomes impetuous, an instigator if it slumbers, it
thus exercises an ever-active influence on its progress ;
the support and council of the Throne, it brings to it,
with the tribute of its experience and the results of its
investigations, the means, always new, of doing good
and deserving the gratitude of the people."

MR. CAIRD'S SERMON. —This sermon is to be preached
to-morrow evening at St. Peter's-church, Saffron-bill, by
the Rev. G. Mansfield. The reverend gentleman assigns
as the reason that the working classes cannot afford to
purchase a copy of it.
BOARD OF TRADE, WHITEHALL, JAN. g.—The Right
Honourable the Lords of the Committee of Privy
Council for Trade and Plantations have received, through
the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, a copy of a
despatch from her Majesty's ambassador at Paris, for-
warding a copy of a French imperial decree, fixing, for
the present, the duties on the importation of sugar, as
follows :—Sugar of a quality equal at least to the pre-
sent first quality.—ln French vessels—From the French
colonies in America and beyond the Cape of Good Hope,
present duty ; from China, Cochin China, the Philip-
pines, and Siam, 45f. per 100 kilos. ; from other coun-
tries of India, 47f. per 100 kilos. ; from elsewhere out
of Europe, 50f. per 100 kilos. ; from the entrepots, 60f.
per 100 kilos. In foreign vessels : 65f. per 100 kilos.
Sugar of a quality superior to the present first quality,
same duties as above, augmented by 3f. per 100 kilos.—
Occate.