The Sun.
London, England, 1860-01-16 00:00:00

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commerce and those of the world in general, for 1
what benefits one nation going ahead in the right i
direction must benefit others as well. We are born
and made to act on the broad principle of universal
reciprocity, and those who act and err to the con-
trary are but mere ISHMAELS to the general good.
Peace hath her victories as well as war. NAPOLEON
tried his hand at war—triumphed, but hastily

recoiled even at the sound himself had made.
But now he has tried his hand at nobler, because

more enduring, work. He has let the bound go
free, and cleared the scales from the vision of the
over-credulous blind. It would seem as if he only
bided his time. Pondering long in apparent seclu-
sion from the ways of men, his observation became
quickened by scrutinising their conduct and watch-
ing their faults. Be made no sign, for the hour had
not yet come. But now that time had tolled the
knell of Intolerance in Church and State—he
stretched his hand forth—seized the sign-manual
and wrote the doom of the BELSHAZARS in the
Great Book of France. It will last to eternity !
All glory be to the master-mind which summoned up
courage to blot out the black spots that eclipsed the
fair fame of one of the most enlightened nations
in the world. The task was Herculean as the daring
was chivalrous. But the miracle has been accom-
plished, and posterity will admire, in its very won-
der, at the beneficent results to the human race.
The EMPEROR'S letter to M. FOULD, Minister
of State, thus sums up the intended reforms :
Suppression of the duties on wool and cotton.
Successive reductions of the duties on sugar and
coffee. Energetic amelioration of the means of
communication. Reduction of the canal dues, and
consequently a general lowering of transport cost.
Loans to be granted to agriculture and industry.
Considerable works of public utility. Suppression
of prohibited articles and commercial treaties with
foreign Powers." Besides which, no less than
160,000,000 of francs—over six millions sterling—
are to be devoted in three years to the execution of
great public works; and this sum is in hand from
the last loan, so that no new taxes will be wanted,
elsewhere, as for national improvements !
The object of the Emperor is to' give a greater
development of the different branches of National
Wealth—and for effecting this he communicates to
the:Minister "the bases of the programme of reforms,
several parts of which will have to receive the appro-.
bation of the Chambers, and upon which you will co-
operate with your colleagues, in order to prepare the
most suitable measures to give a fresh impulse to
agriculture, industry, and commerce." He further
adds that " long ago the truth was proclaimed that it
is essential to the prosperity of commerce that the
means of exchange should be multiplied ; that
without co-operation industry remains stationary,
and maintains the high prices which check the
progress of consumption ; that, without a prospe-
rous industry developing capital, agriculture itself
remains in a state of infancy. Everything, then,
is bound up in the successive development of the
elements of public prosperity. But the essential
question is to know to what extent the State ought
to favour these various interests, and what order
of preference it should grant to each of them.
Thus, before developing our foreign commerce
by the exchange of products, we must first improve
our agriculture, and free our industry from all
interior impediments which place it in a position of
inferiority. A general system of sound political
economy alone can, by increasing the national
wealth, spread prosperity among the working
classes. Every year the State grants consider-
able sums to agriculture for clearing woods
situated in plains, and lowering hilly ground.
The great works of draining, irrigating,
,nr7 rlporing Viv ground ttre to be continued.
To encourage manufactured productions, it is neces-
sary to exempt from all duties primary articles in-
dispensable to industry, and to advance capital at a
moderate rate of interest, which will assist in per-
fecting the material. By these measures agricul-
ture will find an issue for its produce, industry,
freed of all interior obstacles, will advantageously
compete with foreign products, and commerce will
make a fresh advance. To counterbalance the re-
duction of duties on primary materials and pro-
visions of great consumption, the redemption of the
public debt will provisionally be suspended.
All this is very encouraging in a national
,point
of view to France, and must in its working results
become most beneficial to England both in precept
and example, for Heaven know we, too, have many
anomalies, monopolies, and hypocrisies both in
Church and State—in Army and Navy—in Law
and Jurisprudence—to reform—not forgetting the
greatest reform of all—the pure reform of our Re-
presentation, which will, like AARON'S serpent,
swallow up the rest.
It is the secret consciousness of this most de-
sirable result that has been the back-water in
our current of political profession, be it Whig,
Tory, ultra-Radical, or all ultras whatsoever. Like
a certain gentleman they can quote Scripture to
suit the occasion, but all the while they neverthe-
less believe, and tremble too.
Let us hope that this explosion of Napoleonic
frankness may not be taken as a scapegoat
for our special pleading statesmen, but that
they will repent their errors and so amend—
amend, not promise—for we are sick of promises
which are thrown like a tub to the whale to mis-
lead while they ride off on the assumed cleverness
of their momentary deceptions.
Now that the Emperor NAPOLEON has at length
broken the ice, we hope he will follow up his re-
forms by extending to the mind of France what he
has granted to her commerce—that he will yet dare
to liberate the legislative mind of his Chambers, so
that they may in reality represent their constitu-
ents, by bringing them more in harmony with the
people ; and, to crown all, take off the shackles
which cramp the free expression of the French
journals—for in doing this he will more consolidate
his own power than if he had ten thousand legions
at his beck. Let him dare to be honest, and boldly.'
exclaim—Who's afraid ?

In spite of many sinister predictions to the
contrary, our Indian Empire is in a fair wey
already towards recovering both from revolt and
bankruptcy. Simultaneously with the receipt of
the good tidings that the last smouldering embers
of the rebellion of the Bengalese have been happily
extinguished, there come to us auguries if not of
the immediate establishment of a flourishing exche-
quer at Calcutta, at any rate of a vast and com-
plicated scheme of fiscal and financial reorgc nisation,
by means of which the revenues of our Asiatic
Empire may be rapidly restored, and its com-
mercial prosperity eventually ensured. Those
who were loudest amongst the prophets
of evil and disaster, are now the most
zealous, the most eager, and the most san
guine in their exultation. So far, at least, they
aro making the best amends in their power for
their unjustifiably sombre and lugubrious vaticina-
tions. The recollection, however, of their now
withdrawn predictions in this matter, ought to act
as another and a most timely warning to the more
credulous that these voices of gloom and (in pre-
tension at least) of doom, are in no way to
be relied upon as infallible—that canards can