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

tions which followed them, the Commanders and
Ambassadors of the Allied Powers acted with the
most friendly concert; Papers on this subject will
be laid before you.
The state of my Indian territories is progressively
improving, and I trust that their financial condition
will gradually partake of the general amendment.
An insurrection of a portion of the natives of
New Zealand has interrupted the peace of a part
of that colony ; but I hope that the measures which
have been taken will speedily suppress these dis-
turbances, and enable my Government to concert
such arrangements as may prevent their recurrence.

Serious differences have arisen among the States
of the North American Union. It is impossible
for me not to look with great concern upon any
events which can affect the happiness and welfare
of a people nearly allied to my subjects by descent,
and closely connected with them by the most inti-
mate and friendly relations. My heartfelt wish is
that these differences may be susceptible of a satis-
factory adjustment.

The interest which I take in the well-being
of the people of the United States can-
not but be increased by the kind and cordial
reception given by them to the Prince of Wales
during his recent visit to the Continent of America.

I am glad to take this opportunity of expressing
my warm appreciation of the loyalty and attach-
ment to my person and Throne manifested by my
Canadian and other North American subjects on
the occasion of the residence of the Prince of Wales

among them.
I have concluded with the Emperor of the French
Conventions supplementary to the Treaty of Com-
merce of the 23d of January, 1860, and in further-
ance of the objects of that Treaty.
I have also concluded with the King of Sardinia
a Convention for the Reciprocal Protection of
Copyright.

These Conventions will be laid before you.
GENTLEMEN OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS,
_ .

I have directed the Estimates for the ensuing
year to be laid before you. They have been framed
with a due regard to economy and to the efficiency
of the several branches of the public service.
MY LORDS AND GENTLEMEN,

Measures will be laid before you for the consoli-
dation of important parts of the Criminal Law ; for
the improvement of the Law of Bankruptcy and
Insolvency ; for rendering more easy the Transfer
of Land; for establishing a uniform system of
Rating in England and Wales ; and fer several
other purposes of public usefulness.

I confidently commit the great interests of my
Empire to your wisdom and care ; and I fervently
pray that the blessing of the Almighty may attend
your Councils, and may guide your deliberations
to the attainment of the object of my constant
solicitude—the welfare and happiness of my
people.

We hardly know why, but we had somehow
looked for the EMPEROR'S Speech with more
favourable hopes than reason perhaps warranted.
We had possibly been unconsciously influenced:by
the recent verbally liberal announcements in con-
nection with the PERSIONY Regime, unreflectingly
to expect that the performance might be better
than the promise. Whatever we had of such vague
feeling is now, however, gone, and gone for ever,
and we only wonder at the strange hallucination
which half stole over our thoughts. The Speech as
delivered is now before us, and we may sum up its
contents in two sentences—l will be as absolute as
ever at home—l will be as untrustworthy as ever
abroad.

We certainly in thus describing the Speech do
not set down aught in malice. Its long first
part is, as we understand it, a description
of his Houses of Parliament in com-
parison with the parallel bodies under the
, Monarchy, of course to belaud the creations
of his own will. And what is the con-
summating excellence of Napoleonic institutions ?
Why, that while the old Deputies could upset a
Ministry, his have no such power. They may
talk and discuss, and we suppose vote, their
opinions, too, like the body which is the laughing-
stock of English business-men—Convocation ; but
power they have none. The Corps Legislatif
" discusses the laws with the most entire liberty.
If they are not approved of it is a notification of
which the Government takes into account. But
this rejection does not shake the Government, does
not arrest the progress of affairs, and does 'tot
oblige the Sovereign to take for councillors men who
do not enjoy Ms confidence." In plain words—
The—oft Chambers, though elected by a too
limited suffrage, had some real power. You,
gentlemen, are to have none. I will take note of
your opinions; they may very often enable me to
hold in check Ministerial servants—c, sons of
ZERITIAII—who are too strong for me," or
whom, at least, I cannot easily shake off
but beyond that, or beyond, at least,
letting me see how a collection of respect-
able gentlemen view the proceedings of
Government, you are to have no influence what-
ever. As ALEXANDER said to the Poles at War-
saw not long
_ago, "No dreams gentlemen, no ,
dreams"

It may be that in spite of Maires, Prefects, and
other Government agents which infest and domineer
in every town and village in France, some half-dozen
men may get in by universal suffrage and the
ballot, who will dare to speak their minds, and
some speeches may be made which will produce
what our neighbours call " Sensation"—but can

we expect from a body nearly every individual of

which has been recommended for election by the
Government—with mush the same authority as
onr cathedral chapter have leave to elect the
person named to them—can we expect from such
a body anything like honest opinions ? Indeed,
the members of it are carefully told their duty.
" I have decided, says the EMPEROR, that
every year :a, !general expositioa of the situa-
tion of the Empire shall be placed before you,
and :that the most important despatches of
diplomacy, shall be laid on your tables," but why
is this—that they may have " the faculty of forti-
fying the Government by their public adhesion, or
of enlightening it by their counsels." He goes on
to tell them of their new Privilege of full discussion
of the address in reply, paragraph by paragraph,
but significantly adds that all he has conceded does
"not in any way affect the spirit of the Constitu-
tion." What that spirit is cannot be doubted.
Probably, during no ten years in the history of
France has such a complete suppression of all the
intellect and thought of the country been known.

That one mind might rule, all other minds have

been crushed into silence.

The EMPEROR has

been such an incubus upon the intellect of France

as has placed her in the noblest department of life

n the rear of modern civilization.

But we turn from the rehearsal of the beauties
of Napoleonic Inststutions—the crowning one of
which is that they all form a pedestal for the

NAPOLEON of the day—to NAPOLEON abroad. We

suppose we ought to be assured, but it seem-, we

are not along in our stiff-neckedness ; since he has
endeavoured to prove in his relations with foreign
Powers that " France sincerely desires pea„.”
Evidently he has found the proof difficult, nor is

' this much to be wondered at. When his army is
kept up to a point, and in a degree of readiness for
action which menaces all within his reach—when
his arsenals resound with preparation of the muni-
tions of war, and when his dockyards are crowded
with iron-plated vessels, built and building; when
England, Austria, Prussia, all Germany, are thus
compelled to incur enormous expense, merely that
they may not be at his mercy—it would rather be
wonderful if he could persuade his neighbours
that he was a man of peace. What are the guarantees
he gives us that he will not break the peace, why
that—" It is sufficient for the greatness of the
country that its rights be maintained where they
are incontestable ; to defend its honour wherever it
may be attacked ; and to afford its support where
it is supplicated in favour of a just cause." Above
all, we suppose we must accept the following as
conclusive—when we have read it, why not at once
beat our Enfield Rifles into tramrails, recast our
artillery into steam engines, and lay up our ships
to rot in ordinary ? "My firm resolution," says
' pacific EMPEROR, "is not to enter into any conflict
in which the cause of France is not based on right
and justice." Unfortunately, there is not one of
the great butchers of the human race, who, from
the days of NIMROD to those of the annexation of
Savoy and Nice, have stuck at no slaughter requi-
site to feed their ambition, who would not have
adopted the same language.
But he agreed with his allies, he tells us, to
respect the principle of non-intervention. And his
language here is even that of argument in
its favour—" My Government, agreeing with
its allies, has considered that the best means of
obviating the greatest dangers was to have
recourse to the principle of non-intervention,
which leaves each country master of its des-
tiny, localises questions, and prevents them
from degenerating into European conflicts."
could it be believed that all this is followed imme-
diately by the mention of such illustrations as the
" Cession of Nice and Savoy ;" which are now
" irrevocably united with France," by the mention
of Syria when he is endeavouring to prolong his
occupation in violation of a solemn contract—of
Rome where " he finds it necessary to increase the
garrison, and to Gaeta itself. If all this be non-inter-
vention we may well ask, what is intervention ? In
regard to the latter indeed, he says, with the most
illogical nonchalance that the presence of his ships
obliged him (and that as he els where says for
four months to infringe every day that principle of
neutrality which he had proclaimed, and gave rise
to erroneous interpretations !" And then with al-
most infantive innocence he adds, "indeed you know

that in politics people do not believe in disinterested
acts." Certainly not when oaths, protestations, as-
semblies, the army, the navy, the clergy, the
peasantry, Sardinia, Rome, Syria, we are sorry to
add England, herself, have all been successively
used by one man in his own interest purely, and
discarded or retained as served that one man's pur-
poses. Perhaps the EMPEROR might learn some-
thing by asking why he was believed to act disin-
terestedly in politics, and why all Europe now
believes the same of GARIBALbI.

Of course the treaty with England was not quite
forgotten, it enables him to tell the poor that while
by a curious commercial logic, increased production
had raised the prices of all things, he had endea-
voured " to make articles of primary necessity as
cheap as possible. One piece of good luck
is all his own, though we wait to see how it
befel him, before we call on Mr. GLADSTONX
to try his plans. He sacrificed £3,600,000 of
of Revenue, and yet balanced his budget without
the imposition of a single tax ! Perhaps Mr.
GLADSTONE, however, could have done the same
if our peaceful neighbour had not forced upon us
warlike preparations to match his own.

Ministers have so often of late years PROMISED
and promised largely through the constitutional
medium of the gracious Speech of the SOVEREIGN,
that the nation has at length come to regard with
comparative indifference those auguries of adminis-
trative measures and of legislative assiduity
which haye, alas, proved so very often illusory—
leading session after session by an apparently in-
evitable necessity to a succession of the most cruel
and irritating disappointments. Insomuch has
this really and truly grown into a habit of late
years with her MAJESTY'S Ministers that people
have gradually come to regard with apathy that
annual Speech. from the Throne which used to
be looked into of yore with such eager curiosity,
becaliie the subsequent doings of Parliament
plainly enough indicated there in themain that
the realization of the future sketched out through
the Royal Address might be awaited with a certain
degree of confidence. What, however, was literally
the " exception" then is the " rule" now almost
invariably. The Speech from Throne composed of
so many paragraphs, contains such and such pro-
mises as to the good intentions of her MAJESTY'S
Government. Those deplorable good intentions
with which, according to one of the wise sayings of
Doctor JOHNSON, a saying of his that within less
than a century has acquired for itself the dignity
of a proverb worthy of having descended to us from
a remote antiquity—those most lamentable good
intentions with which said Doctor JOHNSON
hell itself is paved, and with which a
recent and sufficiently extended experience has
shown that Downing-street also is carefully flagged
and macadmized. Judging from the result revealed
to us of late years down at the new legislative
palace:at Westminster, it might safely be predicated

that, among all the fair promises contained in the
Speech from the Throne, at the commencement of
the Parliamentary session, the merest unit or so
amongst them, and those (of all) the most mani-
festly insignificant in themselves, would, at the
close of each session thus ostentatiously inaugurated!
be found to have been even partially fulfilled in
the shape of a substantial enactment. It is only
necessary, indeed, in order to appreciate upon the
instant the force of all this, the accuracy of each
one of these deliberate statements—it is only
necessary to this end to bear for apassing moment
in recollection, the large cry and little wool of the
last past session of the Imperial Parliament.
What brave words of promise did not the Royal
Speech at the opening of the legislative labours of
1860, comprise, in regard to such distinct reforms,
let us say, as those affecting the laws relating to
bankruptcy; or, again, to such generalised reforms
as those affecting the whole system of popular
representation, And how frequently had not the
the latter most appetising, but most illusory, vision
been held up and " dangled" like bob-cherry before
p thatart emu
loadre, r n
it Tantalus in
seem,
een t op-boo
resemblests, who,
accurately in this
enough the genus homo (according to POPE) who—
" Never is but always to be blessed I"
The Ministerial promises, therefore, which are
annually contained in the Speech from the Throne
at the commencement of the yearly session of
Parliament—from being looked to with eager
and sanguine expectation have come thus
quite comprehensibly to be listened to, and read

by the nation at large, latterly, as we have said,

and literally with comparative indifference.
It is not, consequently, by the words which have
eon now set down by the Cabinet of Sixteen, by