DEBATES IN THE FRENCH CHAMBERS.

Otago Witness, Issue 643, 26 March 1864, Page 18

DEBATES IN THE FRENCH CHAMBERS.

The debates of the French Legislative Assembly recall to memory the pages of Lucian or of Lyttelton. They are, as it were, dialogues of the dead. The names that thrilled our youthful imaginations start up once more, the orators whose vigorous eloquence decided the fate of ministries aud shook or supported dynasties, come forth from their long and compulsory retirement, and mingle strangely and incongruously the scenes of the Ites r oration and of the Orleans Monarchy with the transactions of the second empire. The appearance of these men of other times in the midst of the generation of public men which the mingled effects of Imperialism and universal suffrage have flung upon the stage has produced one immediate effect. The Legislate Chambers of Franco have hitherto shown themselves very intolerant of opposition. Determined to have a strong government at all events, they have put forth their whole strength to support it. What could not be effected by argument was attempted by clamour and interruption, and what clamour and interruption could not do was left to the practised dexterity of the president, who had a peculiar faculty for converting a damaging onslaught on the government into a single combat between himself and the obnoxious member, in which it mattered very little who got the victory, since the result was sure to be the interruption of the discussion and relief from a disagreeable subject These tactics answered perfectly well so long as it was only with Republicans that the Assembly had to deal. But, with the quick tact of the French character, the Assembly seems to have felt that the treatment which might very well be measured out to the former Opposition would not succeed with that which the late elections have brought into existence. The Assembly treated M. Thiers on his second entry into public life with signal respect.

Similar honors have been accorded to M. Berryer, who, rising at the age of 75 years to address the Chamber, for the first time since his election, on the Supplemental Credits Bill for the year 1863, was a noble, venerable, and historical figure, such as few could regard without emotion and respect. M. Berryer regards the financial state of France from the same point of view as M. Thiers. He disdains to exaggerate the evil he denounces ; he is entirely of opinion that there is nothing in the present state of French finance which need inspire alarm, provided the causes which led to the difficulty be removed. He exposes with searching analysis and unpitying logic the pretence, put forward on behalf of the Government, that the expenses vvhich have swollen the floating debt were such as could not be foreseen. He proves that they were foreseen, and might have been included in the amended budgets, but were purposely omitted, with the design of concealing from the Chamber and the Government the real state of the finances. M. Berryer is very happy in pointing out how little France obtains in exchange for the enormous expenses with which her foreign expeditions have saddled her. Before the war with Cochin China the trade of France with that country amounted to 12,000,000 francs ; since the war it is reduced to less than half. He heard with dismay that the army was to remain at least another year in Mexico. Another year! Why that represented another 150 millions at the least. They had now got a claim of 200 millions upon Mexico, which they would never realise, and he believed that before beginning the war the original debt of Mexico to France was onty about four millions. After insisting very strongly upon the necessity of reviving the operation of the sinking fund, and attributing the high price of the funds at various periods from 1848 to the action of that fund, M. Berryer concluded with the following peroration : —

" Leaving ior the moment out of view expeditions that may be commanded by imperious necessity, I conjure the government to preserve pease for France in all circumstances where our honor is not concerned, our independence not menaced. In other countries it might perhaps be imprudent, perhaps uupatriotic, to say that France has need of peace. But France can say this openly — (much applause) — and I myself say it without hesitation. I cannot contemplate without dismay the catastrophe, the ruin to which our commerce, our industrial establishments, our universally diffused shares and securities would be exposed by a general war breaking out on the continent.— (Applause.) When a man has reached my age he is without personal pre- occupation, the future is not for him ; but I shall ever remain faithful to my passion for the brilliant and happy destinies of my country.— (Great applause.)" When he resumed his seat, approbation was general, and from many benches, even those not far from where the repreeentalives of the government were seated, there

was a burst of applause, which did not soon subside. The deputies rose and moved from their places under the excitement of the moment, and the proceedings were suspended for at least a quarter of an hour.

M. Thiers delivered a magnificent speech in the debate upon the address to the emperor in reply to his speech. There are few spectacles more striking in Europe than to see how the imperial bayonets droop before men like MM. Thiers and Berryer, how powerless the all-powerful Bonapartists are before the great masters of Parliamentary fence. M. Berryer's speech, however, was upon finance. M. Thiers went far further, and rising for the first time to the full height of his old position, speaking wnh a courage that actually awed the government bench, he dared to demand full liberty from the emperor under penalty of France taking it by force. Rapidly reviewing the history of the country, he showed that liberty thrice suppressed had thrice been regained by violence, and asked if a necessity felt and obeyed so long could be considered ialse or factitious. But there is liberty, perchance, in Fiance? M. Thiera meets that assertion by a specific demandfor the five essential conditions of freedom ; the liberty of the individual — violated by the law of public safety ; the liberty of the press — for to grant liberty of debate without it is "to tell a secret to ten men and entreat the eleventh to say nothing;'' electoral liberty — "universal suffrage is the new divine right when it elects kings, but when it has to elect deputies government teaches it what to do;" Parliamentary liberty — for "if I accord to Government the initiative in everything, it must accord us in turn control over everything" and, finally, the responsibility of ministers — they had ministers indeed, " the portfolio was open, but then a simple decree could fill it." He openly ridiculed the habitual reply of the government that such demands only served to reintroduce the regime of rhetoricians, asking with quiet adroitness whether ministers were not rhetoricians also, and wound up a speech in which the greatness of his purpose actually invested him, one of the most unscrupulous statesmen of Europe, with high moral dignity, by the following remarkable illustration of the difficulty all French parties find in accepting compromise:— "Our type of character is military, the English is municipal ; consequently in France, Sovereign and people alike have military pride ; but in England, on the contrary, though the Sovereigns have a dignity "which no one contests they know how to yield, and the English peaple how to wait. In France the Sovereigns have military pride. Too often they place their hands on their swords, and cry, 'No more concessions !' and the French people, who have also military pride of their own, spring to arms, and^ then, instead of those pleasant concessions and agreeable compromises which constitute English liberty, we have battles, which leave behind them a victor and a vanquished."

THE SCHLESWIG ELOLSTKIN QUESTION.

The Duchy of Plolstein may now be considered to have passed entirely out of the hands of the Danes. Not only have the royal troops retired beyond the iSchleswig frontier, but the officials engaged in the local administration have either been obliged to follow them or to acknowledge Jthe Prince of Augustenburg, and conduct their business in his name. The Federal execution has led to the transfer of the ducal throne to the new claimant. As the Danish troops retire the party lavorable to him engage actively in the work of revolution, and even those who do not favour a change think it well to acquiesce in a cause which is evidently supported by the whole German Federation. Prince Frederic actually remains on Holstein soil after having caused himself to be proclaimed in defiance of the assertion of the Diet that the decision rests entirely with them; yet though he thus takes the matter into his own hands, a motion requesting him to leave the Duchies is rejected at Frankfort, and the Diet consequently accepts complicity in his acts. The Duke of Augustenburg has, under the title of Duke of Schleswig- Holstein, issued a proclamation, dated December 31, addressed to the people of the Duchies. The duke says : — J. would not hold back before your call. I fulfil a duty in bearing the cares of this momentous epoch. The Federal execution, which from the beginning was not directed against my government, has now ceased to have any object. I am convinced that the Federal Diet will now acknowledge that the reasons which determined it to order the administration of the Duchy*by Federal commissioners no longer exist. I expect that my faithful subjects will, however, respect the Federal administration, and that they will avoid any conflict. At the sitting of the Federal Diet on January 2, a motion, introduced by Baron Kubeck, the Austrian minister, and the President of the Diet, to the effect that the heriditary Prince of Augustenburg should be immediately Bummoned to

leave the Duchies, was lost by 9 to 7. By this decision, the Diet indirectly acknowledges the Duke's title to the Duchies.

The Austrian and Prussian governments, alarmed at this indication of the growth of a " third Power" in Germany, formed out of the petty States, proposed to the Diet to allow them to invade Schleswig, not as instruments of the Diet, but as great Powers, The Diet refused, and Vienna and Berlin instantly intimated that they could not permit the Diet to become aggressiye, that they took the matter into their own hands, and that they would themselves invade Schleswig. The ground of their invasion would not, however, be the claims of the Duke of Augustenburg, but the breach of promise made by the Danish minister in 1852, when he accepted the " views of the courts of Berlin and Vienna, more especially in respect to the non-incorporation of Schleswig with the kingdom." The war, therefore, if there is war, is strictly international, and its results will be subject to the action of diplomacy. The Danes show no sign of yielding whatever, and will bayonet Austrians quite as heartily as Saxons ; the Swedes are urging their king to afford them help. Prussia and Austria are urging forward armies of some 25,000 men each, and if the Danes resist there is no predicting to what height German wrath may not blaze. On the whole, the chance of a European war has been much diminished, but that of a local war remains.