The Sun.
London, England, 1868-03-26 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The Times calls attention to a pamphlet by M. Achille
Mercier, who denounces the new Government loan, and
charges the Emperor's policy with having burdened the
country with debt by extravagant expenditure. Indepen-
dently of military necessities, the Times contends it would
be impossible to clear the Imperial Government from the
charge of extravagance. It is not in the nature of things
that such a Government should be otherwise than extrava-
gant. The pamphlet of M. Mercier is intended as an
appeal "aux 1,000,000 rentiers," or, as we might put it, to
the million taxpayers of France. But the Imperial
Government is not the Government of this upper million.
There was a time when the taxpayers wielded the supreme
power, and we need not recall to mind how it was they
rtiffered it to slip through their fingers. The present
Sovereign is the elect of all the other millions. Ire
otyles himself the "friend of the artisan, the Emperor
nof the peasant." The Empire is heir to the Republic;
:nd bound in great measure to its socialistic and commu•
tistic views. It takes upon itself the office of a minor
l'rovidence ; it makes itself answerable for rain and sun-
"-line; it sets limits to the price of bread; it keeps up an arti-
L;ial balance between demand and supply; it acknowledges
,C,e rights of labour, and turns the country inta a national
workshop. What avails it to M. Horn to say in his
ill,n3phlet on "The Balance-sheet of the Empire," that
r- nearly three-fourths of the £124,000,000 spent by the
pir e have been absorbed either by fatally sterile
Orr worse than sterile expenses, or by expenses
of a very questionable usefulness !" The uselessness
of the expenditure lies in the expenditure itsel4
it is something in France to have a Government
r qui fait rouler les ocus." The art of reigning in thae
country consists in taxing the rich for the benefit of the
poor. Whether the result be the trap: formation of a
town of brick into a city of marble, or the construction of
a net of railways which may never prove remunerative,
the result is that the many have lived at the expense of
the few. There may be doubts as to the soundness and
even as to the expediency of this policy ; and M
Mercier may have every reason to point out that it is
not beneficial to the poor, since there are " thref
millions of paupers still existing in France, of who=
'three hundred die of cold and hunger every
&ear." Such, however, is the policy that sprang from.
'and rests on, the plebiscite ; and no one would
Assert that a return to the government of the upper and
middle classes, a re-establishment of the ascendancy of
the " million of taxpayers," even if desirable, would
be at all practicable in France. Nothing can be easier
than for economists to find fault with the present state of
'ings, but no good would come of going once more
ground the revolutionary cycle. The Republic was*
cheaper, and perhaps a better, Government than
the Empire, and Constitutionalism is in every respect
preferable to either. The great point is whether
the transition from good to bad, or from bad to
worse, is at all avoidable. There might be in
this scheme the means for a reconciliation of hostile
parties. A. more even balance between the parties, less
anxiety to throw the weight of the administration into the
scales of the popular suffrage, a determination to allow
fair play to friends and foes, might prove to be the safest,
no less than the most righteous, policy. It might be the
means of bringing the intelligence, the wealth, the worth
of the nation into co-operation with its mere brute force.
It might enable the Government to lay aside the burden of
undivided responsibility ; to disarm factious enmity by the
organisation of legal opposition ; to combine the thrift of
Constitutional Government and the energy of a Republic
with the splendour of Imperialism.
Pealing with the impeachment of Mr. Johnson, the Post
observes that there is no law to guide the United States
Senate in their proceeding. The only precedents which
can assist them in the discharge of their duty are those of
Charles I. and Louis XVI., who were both accused of
high crimes not defined by any particular laws, and were
both convicted. But, even waiving the question of the
legal right of the English or French nation to sit in judg-
ment on their kings, jurisprudence recognises no act, how-
ever wicked or immoral, as a crime unless the Legislature
has declared it to be so, and therefore at strict law the
articles of impeachment which have now been submitted
to the Senate at Washington are one and all untenable.
It is, however, agreed upon all hands that the
extraordinary process of impeachment is intendea
to override technical objections of this kind, and
that those who sit as judges may determine on purely
moral grounds whether the accusation is sustained. Those
who tried Charles I. and Louis XVI. simply asked them-
selves whether those monarchs had been good or bad
kings, and found their issue according to their particular
notions of what a good king should be. If Charles im-
posed taxes without his subjects' consent, such a proceed-
ing may have been wrong, and may have justly incensed
his people, but it certainly could not be termed criminal,
nor (what was much more to the purpose) unprecedented.
In Mr. Johnson's case the acts complained of are certainly
novel, but when their constitutional character is called in
question it must not be forgotten by those who determine
this point that the circumstances out of which they arose
are equally without a parallel.

The Russian 11Iinister of Fin-nee, being awakened to
the principle of free trade, appointed last year a tariff
commision to suggest such alterations in the tariff list as
tIL:y might see fit. This commission, composed in part of
officials, in part of representatives of the commercial and
manufacturing interests of the empire, in the proportion
of twelve of the former to ten of the latter, commenced
its work in November last, and has by this time nearly
completed the draft of a new tariff, which, however, has
yet to be approved and perhaps altered, first by the
Minister of Finance, and then by the Imperial Council.
The Daily News asks the Russian Government what was
meant by this preposterous commission. It gives the
Russian officials every credit for good intentions, but says
it is difficult to conceive a course more dangerous than that
on which they unluckily blundered in the selection of the
industrial delegates. A despotic Government, without
representative institutions, is had enough, but a despotism
of self-interested traders is something too abominable ti
be endured. Even the Russian peasant might revolt
against this, and, taking it as a sign of weakness in the
head of the State, might assert a dangerous independence
His life is wretched enough now ; though no longer a serf,
he is still taillable et cont!able a ins:ricorde, and if his con•
dition is to be still further degraded to satisfy the greed
of a handful of merchants, his patience may not bear the
strain. Who would have given over the settlement of the
corn-law question to a dozen country gentlemen, and as
many clerks from the Board of Trade ? Yet that is very
nearly a parallel to this latest step towards Liberal insti-
tutions which Russia has taken, and on which, no doubt,
she plumes herself not a little.

The Herald declares that whether good or bad, the
bankruptcy bill of the Lord Chancellor is a complete
measure. It delivers us from the inconvenience of having
to piece together some hundreds of sections, in old and
new statutes which have been enacted, altered, repealed,
and re-enacted, in whole or part, till it is hard to know
where to look for the law on any particular head of an
extensive and difficult subject. The bankruptcy law of
the future will be contained in three, or rather two, Acts
of Parliament. By one sweeping statute all former
Acts are abrogated, and in their place we have two
bills which may form an instalment of the code which
philosophical lawyers so greatly desire to see established.
To some extent, therefore, they do but remodel and
systematise the existing law, bringing into shape and
giving to it a congruity in which it is at present wofully
deficient.

It is the first duty of the nineteenth century not to be
astonished by anything. Accordingly the Standard hears
without amazement of the steam man now exhibiting in
New York, and preparing for a proinenade, at the rate of
thirty miles an hour, clown Broadway. This is, at least
we presume, the individual with the " iron frame " so
popular among the muscular novelists—an obedient
Frankenstein, a soulless slave, ready, if not willing, tc
pull a phaeton containing four passengers along tilt
streets at a cost of tenpence a &..e. A citizen of New
Jersey invented him, but a spa. eatei -in New York is
bringing him out." lie is rather. ust ight than Chang,
the Chinese giant, and rather less in bulk than Daniel
Lambert. His stomach is for ever fiery hot, and
his breast boiling over ; his limbs are atlive with a
rattling mechanism ; his head is perpetuttly full of
fumes ; his hat is a ehimney•pot ; his mouth is a
whistle ; the region of his brain contains a safety-valve,
and a knapsack at his back hides all deformities, such as
those of working handles, taps, gauges, and so forth. Add
to this that the Colossus has a benignant countenance,
wears a military moustache, and always lifts his feet when
he walks, and the stranger ought not to be unwelcome.
And so he is to go tugging about the thoroughfares of
Manhattan, with a speed of half a mile a minute, starting,
turning, stopping, stepping over all obstacles, and taking
a yard at a stride with his hollow grasping feet ; and he is
nft very dear after all. The inventor offers to manufac.
tir.-e him by the score for sixty pounds a head. This is
not a great sum to pay tu a rulu Av!2o is as strong as four
horses, who can be fe..l at a cost cf six shillings a week,
who can earn a hunclrec!fold that amount, who* voice and
very groans are subject to his owner's will, who can be
taken to pieces and put together again, and who, when not
wanted, can be locked up in a shed.

The Star charges Orangeism with disloyalty, and quotes
from the speeches made at a soiree of the Newhliss Orange
Institute in proof the grave charge. Especially, the speech
of the Tiev. John Flanagan is mentioned. " Protestant
loyalty," he said, " must make itself understood. People
will say, Oh ! your loyalty is conditional.' I say it is
conditional, and must be explained as such. Will you,
Orangemen of Ireland, endorse the doctrine of uncon-
ditional loyalty ?" The audience, of course, responded
with shouts of " No, never V' The speaker then took his
stand on the Coronation Oath, and declared that the Queen
" should be reminded that one of her ancestors, who swore
to maintain the Protestant religion, forgot his oath, and
his crown was kicked into the Boyne." Finally, after a
strongly personal application of this eminently loyal senti-
ment, Mr. Flanagan wound up his bellicose speech by de-
claring that " if there were a thousand Mr. Cogans in
Parliament, they should be told it is by 'blood they must
acquire the blood-bought rights of the Protestants of
"