The Sun.
London, England, 1861-02-05 00:00:00

OPENING OF TEE FRENCH CHAMBERS

Little need we wonder that the world awaits
with breathless expectation the inaugural address
of the Emperor of the French on opening the
French Chambers. It is an occasion in every way
remarkable. Nine years have followed the eau,
d'etat, and during the whole of that period the
freedom of speech, writing, and even thought, has
been repressed within the French Empire to a
degree never before known in the annals of a nation
equally civilised. The amount of repression must
be judged of by the quantity repressed, and if we
consider what free France would have written and
spoken during the last nine years we have a fair
measure of the force that must have been exerted.
Now we are told that, although as appears from a
recent instance the press may not write freely, the
members of the two Chambers are to be at liberty
to speak freely, and that whatever they may say is
to be the property of the French nation. Another
cause of interest is the extreme ambiguity of the
conduct of the French Emperor during the last
year. No Sphinx can interpret the Emperor so
well as himself. Then we naturally look to the
speech for the solution of the question of peace or
war, which is agitating not only every cabinet, but
every countinghouse in Europe.
We have got the speech, and we cannot help
expressing a fear that it will be read by all classes
in this country with feelings of no little disappoint-
' ment. The vision of a considerable progress
towards real Parliamentary government fades away
as we approach the reality. The Speech of the
Emperor Napoleon has the faintest possible resem-
blance to the Speech of a Constitutional Monarch.
' The measures of the year are not stated with
any minuteness or particularity, and the whole
document has an air rather controversial than ex-
pository. The Chambers are invited to strengthen
the Government by their adhesion, or to aid it by
their counsels, but they are very significantly told
the limits within which they are to act and the
regions of politics into which they are to penetrate.
The Emperor of the French meets the Representa-
tives of the people by virtue of a Constitution to
which they have both solemnly sworn, and which
we should have thought they might have taken for
granted. But the Emperor feels it necessary to
enter into an elaborate, and, as it seems to us, not
very successful defence of the Chambers which he
is addressing. He tells them that the former
Chamber of Deputies was elected by a restricted
suffrage, and, though it had more extensive powers,
was composed so much of functionaries that the
Government exercised great influence. Its votes
also were often influenced by party rather than by
the merits of the question. The present Legislative
Body, on the other hand, is elected by universal
suffrage, has no functionaries among its members,
has all the laws prepared for it by the Council of
State, and discuss them with entire freedom, though
it is not allowed to interfere with the details of
administration. In other words, the old Chamber
of Deputies had many faults, but it was, after all,
a power and a reality. The new Legislative Body
has many merits, but it is without power of consi-
deration. It was scarcely worth while to enter into
such a parallel if a conclusion more satisfactory
could not be deduced. No member of the Legisla-
tive Body can feel that his privileges are at all
extended by these remarks; nay, he must be con-
scious that he is watched jealously by one who has
no intention of parting with one atom of substan-
tial power, or of raising up any body in the State
which dares offer to him a serious remonstrance.
As regards what is to us the more important ques-
tion of foreign politics, the Speech of the Emperor
of the French yields still less satisfaction. He
avows himself an advocate of the principle of non-
intervention, although he is well aware that it au-
thorises sad excesses, and that extreme opinions
would place him on he one hand at the head of a
revolution, and on the other of a general reaction.
Without following either of these courses, the Em-
peror is content to maintain his right where it is
incontestable ; to defend his honour where it is
attacked ; and to lend his support where it is im-
plored in a just cause. The instance of an incon-
testable right which he selects is the seizure of
Savoy and Nice, now irrevocably united to France,
and therefore we are to presume justly acquired.
We cannot think these words reassuring. We
cannot think the illustration a happy one, and
we cannot believe that either France or Europe
will receive as an omen of continued peace
the announcement that the same policy which
annexed Savoy and Nice is henceforth to guide
the destinies of France. As to his ambiguous
conduct of last year, the Emperor violated the
principle of non-intervention at Rome in order to
provide for the security of the Pope, and at Gaeta
from sympathy for the King of Naples, of whose
misfortunes the Emperor himself has been the
principal cause. Finding, however, that the pre-
sence of his vessels gave rise to erroneous interpre-
tations the Emperor withdrew them, and this is
all that is said with regard to the inscrutable
contradictions of conduct which have so effec-
tually puzzled the world. Strong in the force
of his reasoning, the Emperor requires apprehen-
sions to disappear, and confidence to strengthen
itself. Why, he asks, should not commercial and
industrial affairs take departure for a new flight ?
His resolution is not to enter into war unless it
be based on right and justice. France has forty
millions The first virtue of a people is confidence
in itself. Let us, then, he cries, regard the future
with tranquillity in the confidence of our strength
and our good intentions.
We have no difficulty in answering the ques-
tion. Confidence cannot and will not revive,
because the pest is unaccounted for and the future
unexplained. When a great Prince announces a
policy like non-intervention, that announcement
becomes valueless when we are shown how lightly
the policy can be thrown aside at the bidding of
mere sympathies and antipathies; and, as regards
the future, who can feel reassured by being told
that France will act on the principles of right and
justice, as if Savoy and Nice had been rightly and
justly annexed, or as if any nation ever went to
war proclaiming that it drew the sword in the
cause of wrong and injustice ? These words have
been the playthings of Kings from the first of time,
and their natural vagueness is not improved by
the illustration of Savoy and Nice. A Speech which
explains away the liberties already supposed to be
conceded, which implies commercial stagnation and
a want of confidence in all classes ; a Speech which
only mentions a single foreign Power, and that
incidentally, which has no word of kindness for
any one, which gives no :reason for the immense
increase of the Army and Navy, which gives no
account of the foreign relations of the country
and no assurance of her good understanding with
any other country—in which we seek in vain for
the slightest hint of the policy which the Govern-
ment of France is about to pursue, and, above all,
in which the Emperor appears neither content
with the Constitution under which he is acting,
with the principle of non-intervention, nor with
the exceptions he has made in it, nor with the state
of trade, nor with the state of public opinion—.
cannot, ought not, to reassure any one.
Confidence is made of far other elements. A clear
and open policy based on principles easily understood
and steadily enforced, a frank and open communi-
cation of views and motives, and a demeanour
which shows that the Prince has at once con-
fidence in himself and in his people—these are
the indispensable conditions of commercial im-
provement and political tranquillity. The people
of France are well assured that no one will
wantonly attack her. Are they equally sure that
she will wantonly attack no one ? If they are
not convinced of this, is not the fault to be traced
to a Government which does not repose in its people
the confidence it requires from them, and substitutes
a few sounding phrases for a fair and candid state-
ment of its political situation and prospects.—
Times.

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