FRANCE.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 4, Issue 193, 31 May 1860, Page 4

FRANCE.

The speech with which the Emperor Napoleon opened the Legislative body on March Ist. though ostensibly pacific, lias aggravated the geneial disquietude. The Imperial Council is to be greatly enlarged, but the concession is regarded as a mockery. The French Minister of the Interior has instructed the several prefects to prohibit all publications or addresses from the pulpit tending to the agitation of the Roman question. The French Minister of public instruction has issued a circular to the Archbishops warning them against the violent course adopted by the clergy in reference to this question. An address to the Pope was in progress of signature in Paris, suggesting a means of settling the question of the temporalities of the Church in reconcilement with the principle s of modern society. The French fleet lias been ordered home from Algeria. M. 2'houvenel lias been instructed to enter into a negotiation with the English Cabinet, in reference to the Suez canal.

Commercial Treaty. —The Paris journals remarked with great satisfactipn on the large majority obtained by the ministry in the House of Commons in the debate on the Commercial Treaty, and considered it as the inauguration of a new policy founded on the sentiments of the two governments on the well understood necessities of an identical object and common action in the great questions that occupy Europe, and of an accord which is of the utmost importance to the peace of the world and the development of both moral and material interests.

The following comments on the Emperor’s speech extracted from the Scotsman of 2nd March may be found worthy of perusal:— Yesterday the French Emperor, at the opening of the Legislative bodies, delivered an important, and on the whole satisfactory or reassuring speech. It contains indeed one or two disquieting intimations ; but these are no news, and what is newest in the speech, as well as its general tenor, may be described as pacific and of good promise. The most unpleasant and also most puzzling portion of the speech is that relating to Tuscany, whose case, it would appear, is desired by the Emperor to be dealt with separately and differently from the case of the other ?'he Emperor states (repeating more specifically a hint dropped in an official document some months ago) that the “ dominant idea” of the treaty of Villafranca was the partial liberation of Yenetia as the price of the restoration of the old dynasties in the Duchies. In this design, the Emperor confesses that hej was “ foiled and-—-such is the substance of| his statement—he let things take their own course under a sort of protest. lie told the king of Sardinia that, whilst leaving him liberty of action, lie could not follow him in the policy of absorption ; and he uttered some much more special protest against any policy tending to draw Tuscany towards amalgamation with Sardinia, or to endanger the interi ests of the Iluly See. He appears to have

told the king cf Sardinia*that his kingdom would be quite strong enough without Tuscany, as it would have nine millions-of inhabitants. But here the narrative and exposition break suddenly off; and it is very hard to tell in what position the special Tuscan question stands at this moment —indeed, whether it stands or is going on. Wiiat the Emperor says leaves room to hope that he has abandoned the design of keeping Tuscany separate, as lie has his designs regarding the other Duchies ; but, on the other hand, mention is made in the Parisian papers of some important document on the subject having been despatched to Turin only last week. On the whole, there appears to be some new difficulty on this point. Regarding Savoy, the Emperor is more plain than pleasant. He argues that when “ all the passes of the Alps” were to come into the possession of so strong a state as Sardinia will be, even without Tuscany, “ it yvas my duty, for the safety of France, to claim the French side of the mountains.” But lie speaks of this design to be accomplished' net.otherwise than by the will of the population and’the assent of the Great Powers. So that, though we are now authoritatively informed what the Emperor means, we are left in the dark as to what lie will do. One thing it is to be hoped he will do—take into serious consideration the manifestation of feeling in the British House of Commons last Tuesday night, and especially the earnest and direct appeal of the British Minister for Foreign Affairs. The Imperial tone towards. Rome is much the same, making allowance for the difference of medium, as that taken in recent French diplomatic documents. The Fmperor has “ for eleven years sustained alone at Rome the power of the Holy Father,” and, moreover, lias never ceased for a single day to revere him.” Therefore lie has some right to give advice or something more. It is already known, more or less, what the Imperial" advice was, and how entire has been its rejection. For the future, the Emperor does no more than declare pretty plainly that he will not permit another Austrian occupation of the Romagna. On commercial, pacific, and British subjects, the tone and statements of the Imperial Speech must be regarded as highly satisfactory. The Emperor tells his Legislature that such alterations as those effected under the Commercial Treaty with Britain are inevitable sooner or later, and that, by means of the Commercial Treaty, these “ take the character of reciprocal concessions resolved on to fortify the alliance of the two Powers.” France’s present mission, we are told, is peace ; and as “ Providence was so manifestly on our side during the war (surely the Emperor here intends a wicked allusion to Voltaire’s wicked remark about Providence being on the side of the strongest battalions) —it may cxpcotci.v iiiat’ Providence will look still more favourably on enterprises of peace. The Army has been reduced by 150,000 men (which, however, does not mean in France the same thing that such an announcement would mean in this country). “ France menaces no oneand is about to devote herself to “ the amelioration of the lot of the greatest number.” 'When a French Emperor, and a Napoleon, is found adorning and clinching an Imperial Speech by Benthamite maxims, one can scarcely help feeling that his Majesty “ protests too much but, for all that, he may keep his word.