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London, England, 1857-04-18 00:00:00

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[PRICE 41). STAMPED 5D

FRENCH ./V OBLESSE AND POPULATION,

The French have discovered that there is some-
' thing the matter both with the foundation and the
roof of their social and political edifice. A recent
census has incormed. their -own public, and the Euro-
pein world, . that for the last # five years French
popultation has been all but stationary. On the.
other'hand, the Emperor and his Ministers have dis-
covered that a singular want of respect is shown for
titles of nobility. Those who are entitled to wear.
will not wear them ;! and those who have no right
to do so assume them ; and thus the . coronets of
duke, count, and baron are trainee dans la boue.
This latter catas,rophe seems to have Mille' ed the
Imperial:Government much more than the first, for
the Minister of Justice has been ordered to inquire.
into it. Thereupon his Excellency, M. or Count
Abbattucci,. has published a report-, and drawn up
alaw, which is under the consideration of the Coun-
cil of State. The Minister is quite right. What,is
an hereditary Emperor without an hereditary and
respected.itoblesse ? We would, however, su.vest to
the Corsican Solon, M. Abbattucci, tha a noblesse
is a thing that must grow rather than be made. The
oury wiy, to support a noblesse, and to make it
respected, is to allow it torenderitself independent,
and leave it something to do as an independent body.
A noblesse like that which existed before the Revo-
lution, enjoying privileges, and living -u.k.on court
pensions, whilst performing no'ditties,lnat com-
mand the contrary of respect.
The Times, indeed, has been propounding a judg-
ment upon the state of France which would seem
not to harmonise with this opinion. It attributes
the decline of French spirit and population to the
Revolution of 1789 ; that naughty Revolution that
swept awaythe noblesse, that dispossessed the clergy,
that gave to the people the soil of the country
which they were previously prevented from even
cultivating as tenants by the dimes and the correes,
and the weight of exclusive taxation. It is a strange
thing to reproach with a want of enterprise a Re-
volution whose sons marched to Cadiz and to Mos-
cow, to the Pyramids and to Sweden, and whose
grandsons were by no means inferior to us at the
Malakhoff the other day.
But the population ? Well, the French area very
prudent people. They have small trust in Provi-
dence, and like to confide their future to themselves.
They seldom marry without good surety of liveli-
hood, and when events disturb human calculations,
and render life a lottery, the French abstain from
marriage altogether. The statisticians of Paris
have been taxed to account for the stationary crisis
at which the population has arrived. They haYe
laboured to palliate and explain, but have really
said nothing to the purpose. The fact is, that the
French are a people who will not increase in num-
bers without an increase of wealth. And this re-
solve does them infinite honour.

Now, of late years, unfortunately, there has been
no increase of wealth. There bas been an infinity of
speculation, a brisk movement of money out of the
pockets of all int ) the pocket of the State. But of
real trade, productive industry, there has been little;
whilst of that frugality and econothy which were
always the great sources of French accumulation,
there is infinitely less than ever. M. Proudhon
has just published a book, in which he sets down
speculation as a source of riches. And, as a proof
of his assertion, be instances a log or a piece of
fancy rosewood. The purchaser has acquired it at
a sma'l price, but as soon as he begins to saw, plane,
and polish it, he discovers that the wood is worth
not only infinitely more than he paid for it, but
more than be hoped or imagined. Here, says M.
Proudhon, is an increase of national wealth. If
so, Law's scheme was a mighty source of national
wealth. And M. De Morny or M. Mires are
monthly adding incalculable riches to the natural
ones of France.

We can see no analogy between the rosewood
which is rendered more valuable by the 14bour which
converts it into useful or agreeable articles, and the
sum of,money which is made to multiply itself (in
appearance) by being made the excuse for innume•
rablo " promises to pay." We differ altogether
front M. Proudhon ; and, ip.stead of thinking
France the richer for the fancy prices of all things,
we deem that she has been spending far more than
her capital in enterprises which, however useful
many of them may finally be, have still interfered
with the employment of capital in industrial and in
commercial enterprise, and subjected her to liabili-
Ves which she may find it difficult to meet. The
Times, we think, need not go back so far as to
throw upon the Revolution of 1789 any present
lack of enterprise in France. The economical and
political circumstances of the time are quite suffi-
cient to account for this, without borrowing a leaf
frdm the Legitimises book of horrors, and casting
the blame of all evil upon Revolution.
The material prosperity of a country and the de-
velopment of its wealth are seldom the results of con-
tinuous progress. They rather advance by bounds, or
rise by steps. The Revolution of 1789 gave an im-
pulse to the prosperity of France by throwing the
land open to her industry and her population. But all
that could be done by the industry of a peasant popu-
lation has been done. Another step is now wanting
—another stride must now be made ; and that is,
the application of capital and skill to land. It
would require far more than the limits of an article
to describe the impediments which obstruct or re-
tard this in France. But there is nothing in the
state or division of property'in France to prevent
its inhabitants from doing what the Belgians have
done, and of making the soil a speculation (not in
M. Proudhon's sense), a foundation for the outlay
of capital and for the employment of skill, instead
of being a mere area for men to live, like savageS,
upon the roots or the crop that nature sends them.
It was a fortunate circumstance for England that,
when the time came for seriously applying capital
to the land, she was shut out from the continent,
and from foreign speculation, and from a world of
distraction, so as to be able to turn to account the
high prices of provisions which ranged through so
many years, and which gave an ample return for
the capital and skill then lavished upon her soil.
France has now had the advantage, if she had
known how to use it, of several years of high prices ;
but they have not 'produced the outlay of an addi-
tional million of francs to the land. On the con-
trary, loans and speculation have drawn forth the
little money that used to collect in the rural dis-
tricts and, of that money, what was not spent in
the dis-
tricts,
has been spent in the towns. The rural
population of France has followed the rural capital
as it migrated, just as sheep follow the shepherd.
No other explanation is needed of the deplacement
of population demonstrated in the recent French
census.

The Imperial Government does not seem alive to
either the cause or the remedy of the evil. It en-
courages loans for making Russian railroads. It
approves and sets in execution project upon project
for fructifying the barren soils of the Landes or St.
Sologne. But when the best tracts of the country
produce no more than they did in the last century—
from the m ant of either skill or capital applied to
them—of what use is it to sink millions in inferior
soils It is not the breadth of land.that is wanting
in France ; it is the intelligent cultivation of that
which has been for ages alternating between the
fallow and th-t plough. But the small and peas int
proprietor is in the way, it is urged. And this small
proprietor is the result of the law partitioning pro-
perty. Let the Work be begun of applying skill
and capital to land ; and the large returns will soon
make it the interest of the small proprietor to let
or sell. He cannot long resist the overflow of capi-
tal upon the land. His existence is an excuse for
indolence, 'not a real impediment to progress.
If the French Government would give au onward
itupole to population, remove the limit and restric
ton to it, it must be, we repeat, by the application
of capital and skill to agriculture. And if the Em-
peror wants to found a noblesse, let him leave some
local authority and dignity in the provinces other
than the Prefect and the officials who are subject
to him. In order to have farmers, a country must
have landlords—landlords who resido on their pro-
perty and have a legitimate influence in their-dis-
trict. The country
may be said to have no politi-
cal existence in France ; it is inhabited exclusively
by functionaries and peasants. And all the inde-
pendence of the latter, without intelligence, has
not been able to preserve a political freedom.—
Daily Acigs.

IMPROVEMENT OF 'ERIC PORT OF BBEST.—The Meniteur
de la Roue states that M. Vorrier, engineer, charged
with the work of clearing away the Rose Rock, which
obstructs the entrance of a part of the harbour of Brest,
called the Penfield, made an experiment a few days
ago, which was perfectly successful. One of the con-
victs, covered with a diving dress, descended to the
rock at half tide, and deposited a box full of gunpowder,
to which were fitted two gutta-percha tubes, also simi-
larly filled. As soon as the man had come up a light
was applied to the tubes, and shortly after a loud crack-
ing noise was heard, and a large column of water, with
fragments of stone and a quantity of sand and mud, were
thrown up to the height of 20 feet. The commotion was
so great that the Bastion de la Rose, which stands near,
trembled to its foundation. The mass thus moved has
been considerable.