Star.
London, England, 1830-09-21 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF TilE JOURNALS.

TIKES.—The French nation must be presumed to understand best
its own internal condition, or, at least, whether correct or otherwise the
view which any people may take of their own interests, it is they only
who bare the power (which foreign dissentients have not) of carrying
such views into action. We find from the Paris journals, as well as
from our correspondents, that however the institution and the prodigious
extension of the National Guard may be looked upon by distant ob.
servers, like ourselves, as a body in some measure distinct from the
nstion, because regularly organized, and devoted to peculiar uses, or as
a fair object of watchfulness, if not of suspicion, from being a body
self-officered and completely armed, the French regard it as in.
corporated, or rather identified, with the country, and incapable
of being moved by any interests or impulses which are not com-
mon to it with the whole of constitutional France. Undoubtedly
if it is to be understood, as some of our contemporaries have informed
us, that the National Guard of France is commensurate with, and does
actually constitute the entire French people who have means of provid-
ing themselves with clothes and firelocks, there is an end of the ques-
tion,-so far as concerns the distinctness of the two communities. Still
we may be permitted to remark, that even a people might be disposed
to act differently with arms in its hands, from its mode of behaving
itself without them ; and that its own interests and those of other na-
tions might be affected through the immediate operation of a million of
hands each grasping a musket, and prompt in the use of it, rather more
critically and Irreparably than by any civil government and legislature,
were it even possible to conceive a legislative body amounting in num-
ben to a million of men. As we have said before, however, the
French ought to know their own affairs best ; and if they feel that
a general armament of the nation is requisite towards the assumes it
abroad, and towards the consolidation of order and liberty at
peas abroad,
it becomes a manifest indiscretion in a foreigner to press opposite
counsels on their notice. Such an establishment, nevertheless, will
exercise unavoidably—we must not venture to say injuriously—a para-
mount and permanent supremacy in any country where it exists. But
then, say the optimists, that is still the government "of the people."
Undoubtedly, we admit that it is so; but it is the people making and
administering laws in person, not through deputies, and thus discarding
from its practice the noblest improvement of modern times upon anti-
quity—the invention of representative constitutions. We see that the
Coustitutionnel puts in the same rank, as equally essential to the well-
being of France, the trial by jury for offences of the press, and the
spread of the National Guard, or civic soldiers, to the remotest extre-
mities of France.

Molimn° Port.—lf we may judge by past experience, combined
with existing symptoms—and we know of no other mode of judging—
the Revolution of 1830 is obviously destined to proceed in the same
miserable course, and to arriee et the same deplorable conclusion, with
the Revolution of 1782. It is not yet easy, whatever the march of in.
Itellect may have done to enlighten and improve mankind, tor a nation
like France—for thirty millions of people, to concur in the construc-
tion of a government suited to their various interests, feelings, habits.
degrees, and niodificatons of intelligence. Nor is it so certain even as
the dreamers who arc haunted by the beatific vision of political regene.
ration imagine, or as the imposters who spread this captivating illusion
to bewilder and ensnare the minds of others pretend, that the march of
intellect can have had the least tendency to qualify any nation to
undertake this most delicate and arduous task. In multiplying
beyond calculation the number who will think themselves qualified and
entitled to tote whenever the important question as to how it shall be
governed is opened for discussion to a nation, it seems more rational to
conclude that the march of intellect has, to the same extent, diminished
the probability of that concord without which the successful execution
of this task is manifestly impossible. We see the Society calling itself
the friends of the people, and the Chmnber of Deputies which assumes
to represent the people, diametrically opposed to each other, as to the
actual condition of France, and as to the kind of government which her
welfare and happiness require. We see no reason, however, to doubt
that the march of intellect has been as vigorously followed up by ode
of these bodies as by the other; or, if there be any difference in
this respect, that the self-elected friends of the people have ra-
ther the advantage over the Deputies, whom a small fraction
of the people, by virtue of a Constitution now exploded and
repealed, have elected to represent them. And who shall say that the
former body has not as good a tight as the latter to speak to the French
nation—to endeavour to convince the nation that its intentions are pa-
triotic and its opinions sound—to attempt to carry the nation along with
it, now that the question is fairly opened in France as to what kind of
Government is best calculated to contribute to its prosperity and hap-
piness ? Do not the facts plainly shew the folly and wickedness of
opening such a question at all ? D 6 they not show that this is to the
full as foolish and wicked now as it would have been before the march of
intellect began ? Some of our liberal contemporaries affect to place
much reliance on the efforts of the National Guards to prevent
that confusion and anarchy to which the Revolution is visibly and ra-
pidly leading the unfortunate and misguided people of France. Let
them peruse, for their better information, the very instructive anecdote,
extracted by our Correspondent front the Mesiorial Ifordelais, of the
conduct of the National Guards at Cambes.

CHILOWICLE.—Those who name the majority of the Members of
the House of Commons, have an interest in seeping the expenditure
high, and Ministers can only obtain the support of that majority, by
continuing the large expenditure. The country called loudly for to
last year, and obtained it not. But it is possible that cir-
cumstances may lead this year to that which could never before be oh.
tained. The Duke has a formidable opposition to encounter. In this
country, whatever the views of an opposition are, the grounds of at.
tack must always be liberal. To attempt to oppose the measures of a
Ministry of mere aristocratical pretensions, would excite such general
indignation throughout the country, that if a Minister were to dis-
solve Parliament, they would gain in consequence greatly in
the new Elections. We take it for granted, then, that the mutt
exclusive and haughty Aristocrat that ever entered the House of
Commons, must at least assume liberal pretensions. A Minister
who can count on the Sovereign, may follow the plan alluded to
by our contemporary (The seethes's) of panting as much as the
position would venture to ask. If he were a hollow Reformer, be would
thin the ranks of the Opposition, by letting the principal families know
confidentially, that be should be obliged, in his own defence, to adopt
measures which would break down the Aristocracy ; and that, therefore,
it was not for their interest to drive him into a corner. If he were
really Inclined to retrenchment and reform, he would allow the Oppo-
sition to commit themselves so far that they would be obliged, for the
sake of consistency, to push him on liberal measures. We assume that
the Ministers of this country are almost always more liberal than Paella-
mast. Hence the well-known expedient to which several Ministers

have had recourse of naming Committees, composed of the mos..
honourable ;Ad respectable blembers. to propose savings, and thereby
shame the mho- altsulnrs out of an opposition to the Ministry when
they an: proposed. But still, a Ministry, though generally better than
Parliament, caiiriw be much better. The advocates of econtmy in
Parliament amount to about twenty, or thirty at most, anti seldom
divide more than a dozen. The eagles must be fed. Ministers will
always, we suspect, take care not to allow their virtue to carry them so
far as to make them risk losing caste. There is no making bricks
without straw; no cutting blocks with razors; no making virtuous
men out of those who think only of their separate order.
Mr. Huskisson, who had nerves of iron, was able to make head
against the hatred borne to him by the Aristocracy for his liberal
measures, which they viewed as sapping the foundations of the Corn
Laws; but how few men there are who would not have sunk under
the trial. This extraordinary tenacity is not a quality on which we
are at liberty to count. Most Ministers will prefer an easier course ;
the approbationof Parliament to the approbation of their consciences.
The time is fast approaching when it will be seen whether better
measures will be dealt out to the people in this than in former Par.
Laments. Events have been teaching us, and the country is more in
earnest about reform than it was. It remains to he nen what Par.
liament and Ministers are to be.

MR. HUSKISSON'S CONDUCT WHEN AT PARIS.