The Sun.
London, England, 1860-11-27 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 27. 1860.

BK.ITISEi POSSESSIONS.

THIRD EDITio.N.

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THE CIII NGES IN THE FREIITCII
CO TSTITUTION.

Governments like that of the French Emperor
deal largely in the unexpected. No one would have
anticipated that in this hour of quietude and esta-
_ _ „ _

blished fame the Ruler of France would think i

necessary to propose a change in the constitution
of his country ; and yet such is the case. Changes
in the Ministry accompany changes in the consti-
tution. Count Walevvski becomes Minister of State
in place of M. Fould, resigned. This in itself would
be a matter of little moment to Frenchmen and of
none at all to us. Whether the President of the
Congress of Paris or his financial colleague fill a
certain office can have but little effect on the
course of events in France ; and, though England
has no reason to be attached to a politician who
professes to despise Parliamentary institutions, yet
we can see his return to power with perfect equa-
nimity. More important are the decrees which so
much extend the influence of the Legislative Assem-
blies in the French Empire. The Emperor—so
says the Imperial. Decree—is desirous to afford to
the great bodies of the State a more direct partici-
pation in the general policy of the Government and
a direct proof of his confidence. Accordingly, the
Senate and the Legislative Body are annually to
vote an address in reply to the Imperial speech at
the opening of the session. The address is to be
discussed in the presence of Government Commis-
sioners, who will give the Chambers the necessary
explanations on the home and foreign policy of
the Empire. Changes are introduced in the
method of discussing bills or projects of law ;
and the debates of the Senate and Legislative
Body, reported by the seeretaries, under the
authority of the President of either Chamber,
are to be sent every evening to all the journals.
The debates of each sitting are to be accurately pub-
lished in the official journal of the following
Ministers without office are to defend the projects
of law before the Chambers in concert with the
members of the Council of State.

It would ill become us to keep silence on the
promulgation of so important a decree. We may
state, however, at once our conviction that Napo-
leon has no intention of conferring upon his shadow
of a Peerage and his shadow of a Representation
those privileges which belong to the free assemblies
of this country. The constitution of the French
Empire is such that a parallel can hardly be drawn
between us and our neighbours. The bodies which
are now promised an increase of freedom across the
Channel are widely different from our own. The
French Senate consists of celebrities, and is as power.
less and as devoted to authority as an assembly
must be in which the number of independent and
nonofficial personages does not preponderate. The
Legislative Body is only an inferior Senate, filled
with. local celebrities, recommended by their devo-
tion to the Imperial cause, and accordingly sup-
ported by all the power of the Prefect and his
subordinates. But these loyal and compliant poli-
ticians, as subservient to the views of the ruler as
any Parliament of the Stuarts, are by no means
to be despised as legislators. The most frequent
objection to our own Parliament is founded on the
number and length of the speeches, which leave
no time for business. A French Assembly can-
not be charged with the same fault. In the
Senate the speeches are few and far between.
Eloquence is as courteous as a funeral oration
under the old Monarchy, and confines itself to
panegyrics on the wisdom of the Emperor and
congratulations on the success, the power, and the
glory of France. What else could be expected from
an Assembly where Cardinals, Marshals, and
Admirals sit by virtue of their rank, and where
high dignity and a sufficient income are held
merely by the permission of the supreme
authority ? The Legislative Body is more inde-
pendent in constitution, but hardly more coura-
geous in practice. A voice is seldom raised against
the acts of the Government, against the extrava-
gance which is sweeping away even the rapid gains
of French industry, and the unintelligible vagaries
which from time to time unsettle the commerce and
disorder the calculations of Frenchmen. But in
the every-day business of legislation the French
Assemblies have no reason to be ashamed of a
comparison with our own. The two Chambers
never meet without having a number of bills ready
for their examination, and never separate without

important additions having been made to the law
of France. It is a fact as old as the days of the
Roman Cmsars that the strictness of a despotic
monarchy is no obstacle to the improvement of the
machinery of State; that it has, in fact, advan-
tages to which liberty cannot attain. Projects of
law, prepared by the first men in France, are laid
every year on the table of the Legislative Body ;
are examined there by men who, if not indepen-
dent in their political opinions, are at least'qualified
for the scientific work of legislation ; and it is
worthy of notice that so large a number of good
measures receive a thorough examination and a final
sanction from a Legislature which the world in
general regards as only servile and supine.
The Emperor's concessions, therefore, are not
to be considered as trifling. He has a Legislature
which, though not a vigilant guardian of the pub-
lic freedom, is composed of men of ability, wealth,
and of a kind of Imperialist patriotism. His Cham-
bers represent the people which has given him
supreme and almost despotic power in return for
material prosperity, military glory, and diplomatic
influence. Napoleon must know that such assem-
blies are only to be led when they have a man fit
to lead them. As long as he has the people at his
back ; as long as he is waging great wars and
occupying the celebrated capital of the earth—
Rome, Constantinople, Athens, Damascus ; as
long as he is defending Italian freedom on the one
side and making advantageous treaties with Eng-
land on the other, he is master both of his
Senate and his Legislative Body, and the most
wayward politician on their benches will hardly
dare to utter a word against the Imperial system.
But in an hour of trial the case may be very dif-
ferent. It is the nature of free assemblies to be
both the comfort and the terror of Governments.
When a Government which has endeavoured to do
its duty is in distress for lack of resources or of
counsel, it finds its best support in a Parliament
which takes away or shares its responsibility,
which resolves the questions it has to propose, and
strengthens with all the weight of a national decision
the opinions to which it inclines. But to the despot,
to the slave of the confessional, or the Camarilla,
a legislature is a constant terror. Where the
constitutional ruler sees support and consolation,
he only sees images of terror, the indignant
orator, the applauding majority, the cheers which
greet the vote of censure, the lowering faces of the
deputation which come to communicate it. When
a monarch acts as Napoleon 111. is now acting, and
gives the Legislature of his Empire fresh powers,
he must be iunderstood to accept in some degree
the position of a Constitutional Monarch. In
giving the French Legislature more freedom he
probably acts, not from any inherent love of liberty
or from any cherished scheme of extending its bless-
ings, but from a conviction, gathered from his study
and experience, that among an educated and quick-
witted people the permanent suppression of popular
rights is impossible. It is advantageous to enlist
on his side powers which can never be totally de-
stroyed, and which tend continually to increase.
The Emperor knows that his own, or his wife's, or
his child's weakness will ever be the Legislature's
opportunity, and he thinks it as well to be before-
hand with fate. With so many Parliamentary
countries around, France must be Parliamentary
also. There is a vitality even in constitutional
forms ; they have a tendency to aggrandise them-
selves, and to draw continually within their reach
new sources of influence. And so the French
Legislature is about to become a political power, and
the Emperor is about to submit his acts and his
choice of men to the representatives of the people.
The step may seem small, but it is real, for a free-
spoken Chamber will require responsible Ministers,
and men capable of effectually defending the Impe-
rial policy must be sought outside the ignoble
coterie which has so long ruled France.—Times.

GAMEKEEPER SHOT.—At a little before 2 o'clock
on Friday morning a messenger came from Ganton to the
police-office at Scarborough with the information that one
of the keepers on the estate of Sir T. D. Legard, at Ganton,
near Scarborough, had been shot, and desiring that the
police might be on the look-out for suspicious characters
passing through the neighbourhood. The keeper is in a
dangerous condition, his face, arms, and body being severely
wounded. He was unable to state any particulars of the
attack.

THE CASE OF POISONING IN WEST SUFFOLK.
—BURY ST. EDMUNDS, SATURDAY.—The long-pending
inquiry into the mysterious circumstances attending the
death of the poor boy Robert Murton, at Fornhsm St.
Genevieve, near this town, on Friday, Sept. 7, was resumed
and concluded last evening by Mr. G. A. Partridge, t
local coroner. The deceased lodged with a labourer named
Curtis and his wife, at Fomham. The deceased boy kept
his little stock of flour in a sack apart from that of the Cur-
tis's, and on his returning home on the evening of- the
7th of September, a puddig was made for him by Mrs.
died
L Curtis. After eating part of this pudding, he ex-
hibited symptoms of having been poisoned, and
aft it a few hours' severe suffering. On the following day
the Ourtises were also attacked with similar symptoms, and
an examination of their flour, as well as tha t which be-
longed to the deceased boy, showed that it ced
senic in considerable quantities. Arsenic was also found
on a post mortem examination being made on the body of
the deceased, and in the crops of several fowls w
threw hich ate
some of the pudding the boy left. Tevhe; evidence no
light on the manner in which the arsenic became mixed
• with the flour, although it was used on the farm for agri-
cultural purposes. The jury returned the following ver_
diet :—"That the deceased died from the effects of arseni-
ca.l poisoning, but whether administered by his own hand
or .thelhast of another there is not stacient evidence to
allow," •