The Sun.
London, England, 1869-07-14 00:00:00

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JULY 14, 1869.

France has now a magnificent opportunity. It
has been accorded to her by reason of what is not
inaptly termed a peaceful revolution. The Imperial
Manifesto read by M. ROUIIER to the Corps Legis-
latif, on Monday, the I.2th instant, effectually crowns
the edifice by placing the Emperor NAPOLEON at the
head of a Constitutional Government. Personal
Government in France has, already, by this act on the
part of the SOVEREIGN, virtually ceased to be. Purely
despotic institutions exist no longer for forty millions
of. Frenchmen. The concessions announced through
the imperial message are six in number, and are all
of them of the most practical and comprehensive
character. They insure to France the priceless boon
of Parliamentary Government. They bring the Exe-
cutive power face to face with the national represen-
tation. They assimilate the French Chamber with
the English Commons. They secure to the
Legislative Body a complete mastery of the
taxation of the country. They suppress, henceforth,
the incompatability hitherto exist4titlegally between
the function of Deputy and tholuottce of Uinieter.

The twenty-first year of the regime of Louis NAPO-
L EON, the eighteenth year of the reign of NAPOLEON
witnesses the re-establishment of those consti-
tutioral and parliamentary institutions which disap-
peared, suddenly, as if by a thunder-clap, almost im-
mediately after the February Revolution. Political
order has grown up out of the chaos resulting from
the last great revolutionary outbreak, insomuch that
in 1869 we see restored many of those constitutional
guarantees which disappeared in 1848 under the
terror of the Red Revolt of June, when the
Republican fasces were replaced by the drip-
ping sword of the military dictatorship accorded
to the Democratic hands of General CAVAIGNAC.
That insensate movement on the part of the
ultra revolutionists caused France to retrograde
from a Democracy to a Despotism. A temporary
dictatorship was, in the course of two or three years,
transformed into an imperial depotism—the mass of
the French population preferring to secure Order at
any cost, rather than run the desperate hazard of
relapsing into Anarchy. Since the re-establishment
of the Second Empire under NAPOLEON 111., how-
ever, the constitutional aspirations of the more in-
teligent part of the French population have been re-
viving, have been expanding, first of all almost im-
perceptably, but of late very apprecbialy, and, by none
more than by theEmPEßon himself, very recognizably
indeed. So recognizable to NAPOLEON 111. has been
this advance of Public Opinion, that he himself was
the one to give the mot to the popular movement when
he spoke, some few years since, as of the goal to be
arrived at, of the crowning of the edifice as, already,
even then, visibly capable of accomplishment at some
future date by himself and by France. That date
has now arrived—possibly earlier than the EMPEROR
had anticipated, though, certainly, not earlier than
France had hoped. The day has come, however.
Personal is henceforth to be replaced by Constitu-
tional Government. As attesting conclusively that
the die has, beyond all recall, been cast, that,
in very deed and truth, alea jacta est it is
especially noticeable that almost simultaneously
with the reading of the Imperial Manifesto, that at
any rate immediately afterwards, the Ministry of
Imperialism, pur a simple, has resigned. M. ROUHER
and his colleagues, individually and collectively
have placed their resignation in the hands of the SOVE-
REIGN. And that resignation has been at once accep-
ted by the EMPEROR. Nominally it is resignation,
actually it is dismissal. The Administration under the
system of Personal Government, could not possibly,
could not at least with any appearance of decency
be the Administration now under the system of Con-
stitutional Government. Especially was there an
imperative necessity for the withdrawal of the ablest
Minister of them all, the Minister of State,
M. ROUHER. The Presidency of the Senate
has, it is said by La France, been offered to
M. RoullEr. by his Imperial Master in recognition
of his undoubtedly great past services. Twenty
years have elapsed since he first took office under the
reigning Prince, in 1849, that is, when he first held
a Ministerial portfolio in his then capacity as Mi-
nister of Justice. Among all the statesmen of the
second empire, he has been the readiest, the most
energetic, the most indefatigable—he has long
had no rival in any way to compare with him
as the oratorical mouthpiece of the Imperial Govern-
ment. So lon g asPerson al Government continued in the
ascendant, he served his purpose well. That system
has had its day, however. It has run out. And M.
RoullErt, perforce, ceases his peculiar impersonation,
his singular role as Alinister of State—marked on
on the one hand by the most profound obsequiousness
to his Imperial master, and on the other by the most
insuferable arrogance to the popular representatives.

In reference to the reconstruction of the Ministry, it
is rumoured at Paris that the Marquis de LAVALETTE
will be replaced as Minister for Foreign Affairs by
the now ambassador to the Court of St.
James's, namely by the Prince DE LA TOUR
D'AUVERGNE, that M. BAROCHE Will be fol-
lowed by some one else yet unnamed as Minister
of Public Worship, and that the same will be the
case with regard to M. GRESSIER, the Minister of
Public Works. But that in the work of reconstruc-
tion, M. MAGNE will retain the Ministry of Finance,
M. FORcADE de la ROQUETTE, the Ministry of the In-
terior, Admiral RIGAULT de GENOUILLY, the Ministry
of Marine, and Marshal NIEL, the Ministry of War.
Another verynoticeable rumour is, that.M. EIsIILE OL-
LIVIER has declined to accept any portfolio. Who is to
be the new Minister of State, in the place of M.
RoUJIER, no one has as yet ventured to conjecture.
Whoever may be nominated to that high office by the
EMPEROR, will hardly, less than France herself, have,
in truth, a magnificent opportunity.

WE have now reached the most critical stage of '
all. The Irish Church Bill—an Irish Church Bill,
rather—has passed the House of Lords, but it is not •
the bill which passed the House of Commons. The
two are different in detail and different in principle.
The magnitude of the difference may be summed up
in a line : the Commons have sanctioned equal dis-
endowmen;, the Lords unequal endowment. The
Commons have decided that, after vested
interests are satisfied, no portion of the
funds shall go to ecclesiastical uses ; the
Lords have decided that they shall go to such
uses, but in such a way that the Church of the
minority is left with nearly all the Church revenues,
the Church of the majority with a miserable
pittance. Which policy will prevail ? Mr. GLAD-
STONE has once more, and more explicitly than ever,
stated that his Government will not consent to what
is called concurrent endowment, nor to the postpone-
ment of the appropriation which is merely and
avowedly a means of obtaining concurrent
endowment at some future time. We have
not the least doubt but that the House of Commons
will support him in this matter. The Liberal party
owes its present strength in the House of Commons
greatly to the injury which the Conservative party
inflicted upon itself by its supposed inclination for
levelling up. Nothing has happened to shew that the
opinion of the nation is different in July from what
it was in November. Certain Whig peers, whom
Mr. GLADSTONE (lid not include in his Cabinet, have,
indeed, taken up with Lord MAYO'S discarded pro-
posal ; but Lord WESTBURY, Lord HALIFAX, and
the Duke of SOMERSET are simply three noblemen
with as little influence over public opinion as any three
men who have held high office. Lord RUSSELL'S
influence is not much greater. Lord STANHOPE'S is
none at all. The Times approves the plan, and that
is no doubt the strongest support it has received.
But the Times is no longer the oracle that it was. It
is but one of many oracles. Rather, the age of oracles
is past, and men treat their journals no longer
as popes to be believed implicitly, but as advocates
whose opinions may be right, but are not unfre-
quently wrong.
The position is as follows. The Lords having once,
by a considerable majority, rejected concurrent
endowment, have, at the last moment, by a majority
of only seven, accepted it, and embodied it in the
bill. It must be admitted that even if the Govern-
ment were at liberty to accept this alteration at all,
the circumstances under which it hcs ben made do
not give it weight. A majority so small
and so tardy in a House that is certainly not in prac-
tice, however it may be in theory, of co-ordinate
authority with the Commons, would scarcely justify
even a much weaker Minister than Mr. GLADSTONE 111
violating his promises or reversing the policy which
the nation has emphatically endorsed. It is inevit-
able that Lord STANHOPE'S amendment should be
rejected in the Commons. We believe it to be
almost inevitable that the alternative pro-