The Sun.
London, England, 1860-05-30 00:00:00

have been broken up ; foreign wares come into com-
petition with theirs; and if, in return, they are to
buy English machinery cheaper, they think, rightly
or wrongly, that they will be too poor r,, work it.
What, on the other hand, is the feeling of the great
consuming mass throughout the length and breadth
of the country ? This vast majority look upon the
Government as the greatest of conceivable bene-
factors ; visions of future plenty are connected in-
separably from its present policy ; and an entirely
new and unprecedented basis of support has been
carved out for the imperial dynasty. That Go-
vernment has encountered the animosity of
hundreds in order to receive the countenance of
millions. The alternative to the Emperor Napo-
leon lay between standing on " the ancient ways"
of the French system of government and throwing
the Imperial cause on the affections, or, at any rate,
on the self-interest, of the multitude. Which course
he has chosen is now matter of history. But they
who would paint a future of encroachment leading
to war and rapine 'would have this Emperor of the
French, incontestably so far-sighted and acute,
throw away all the advantages he has reaped from
his new policy. And not only so, they would have
him, after discarding the old support of the produc-
ing monopolists, which was so powerful that no
previous Prince or Administration was ever able
to break in upon that body, actually discard the
support of the consuming masses on which he had
just been consolidating his dynasty. When you
have once advanced from one position to another,
you cannot afterwards fall back on the former posi-
tion ; partly because the interest which you have
abandoned feels, rightly or wrongly, that you have
betrayed it ; partly because it may be that you
have already so far compromised it as to destroy its
means of giving support. It is just so at this mo-
ment between the Emperor and the monopolists.
Dividing the country into producers and consumers,
the support of the former has been exchanged for
that of the latter ; and if the friendship of the con-
sumers were to be compromised by war, as the
friendship of the producers has been compromised
by free trade, there would be no elements of popular
support for the Imperial Government left. Yet the
Emperor, whom you are so suspicious of, because
he is so clever as well as because he is so powerful—
and whose power has been originally derived from
his ability—is the man from whom you apprehend
an act of political folly which it is acknowledged
that the stupidest Bourbon would have ridiculed.
If this be not precisely M. Fould's argument, it
is at least the thread of ideas which his speech sug-
gests. " Notwithstanding," says the Minister, the
events which disturb some States, notwithstanding
the agitation and mistrust which those parties at-
tempt to excite in the public mind, France, quiet
and prosperous, can devote herself with safety to
public works." We rejoice to observe this fresh
official reference to the greatest of all the domestic
interests of France that now remain to be promoted
by the Government. We assume that M. Fould has
reference to the agricultural condition of France as
affected by the recent proclamation of the Govern-
ment offering pecuniary assistance to the owners of
the soil who shall join in the national endeavour
to promote the reclamation of waste lands in France.
Cultivation in that country is hardly proportionate
to the population, but the proportion of cultivation
to area in France is vastly less than that
proportion in England. The author of an
article on the " State of Europe," in the last
number of the North British Review, computes that
if the French soil is as capable of supperting,its
population as the Belgian, France would be able to
maintain a population of eighty millions. Assuming
this calculation to possess even approximate accu-
racy, it is high time that France, with a new com-
mercial system calculated greatly to increase the
wealth of the country, and therefore its population,
should render a large proportion of the soil culti-
v2ble. Something like one-third of France, or
forty million of acres, is more or less waste, and it
is calculated that, with the increase of imported
coal, the forests in France will be cut down and the
ground will be tilled. But the subdivision of the
soil precludes the successful prosecution of this ob-
ject without large pecuniary assistance from the
Government, and in our opinion the assistance
which has been promised forms the keystone of the
whole agricultural structure which the Government
desire to raise. This is, we conceive, another
pledge of a pacific future. France may become
greater by peace than by war. The results of war
are doubtful ; those of peace are certain, and wise
government in peace is alone wanted to make
France the first country of Europe.

TILE GALE.