thus seized might be such as to consecrate the not restored full freedom and publicity to ju seizure;-that history would forgive the deed dicial proceedings. He has not withheld his if France sanctioned it by her vote, and if hand, as soon, or as much as we believe he Louis Napoleon justified it by throwing over might have done, from the sin of arbitrary imit the halo of a reign signalized by justice, pros-prisonment. Some are still at Cayenne or in perity, and internal peace, if inaugurated by Algiers who ought to be in France, and some violence and oppression. How far has this still in jail or at the galleys who ought to be at

been done?

liberty. He has not discouraged corruption or enforced purity of public conduct among his officials, as he ought to have done. His has not been a frugal or economical Government. There is still much pecuniary iniquity and much scandalous waste in high places. So far he has disappointed the expectations of those who anticipated from him a great, generous, and noble policy.

That France shares in the guilt, if guilt there were; that she sanctioned the usurpation by an ex-post-facto declaration that Louis Napoleon had anticipated her wishes; that she passed as speedily and promptly as it could be done the most complete and cordial bill of indemnity that was ever drawn up, there is now no dispute. Some were delighted that the powers of government should once more On the other hand, he has disappointed be wielded by a resolute and despotic man; equally the fears of those who believed that some rejoiced that they might at length lay his selfish and headlong ambition would set aside their fears of the Socialists; some were Europe in a blaze. He has not marched an anxious only for a respite from the wearisome army into Italy. He has not seized Belgium. reiteration of perpetual intrigues and alarms; He has not invaded England. He has not others had no belief in the suitability of either insisted on the frontier of the Rhine. It is a republican or constitutional regime for possible that the wild dark dreams which had France, and were glad to return to a dictator fermented in his brain during the brooding who would save them the trouble of govern- years of imprisonment and exile have been ing themselves; others, again, were sick of the rapidly dissipated by the light of day and the hommes politiques of the last twenty years, and healthy influence of the actual business of hoped much from an entirely new order of political life. He was restless and tormented men; officers looked for promotion, priests for with a vague and insatiable ambition as long encouragement and power;-but from one as he was unfortunate and obscure :--now that motive or other, it cannot be doubted that at he has reached the pinnacle which he so long least a numerical three-fourths of France ap- sought, he may repose on his success; he can proved of what had been done, and readily distinguish between the possible and the im pardoned, if they did not applaud, the mode possible-between chimeras and realitiesof doing it. Nor has the sanction then given between dreams and actualities:-and is far been since withdrawn:-on the contrary, the too wise to risk so rich a certainty as that President was soon made into an Emperor; plots have ceased; no one looks for, and few desire, an immediate change of dynasty; even rival parties have acquiesced for the present, and admit that they must wait for a change of public feeling before they can entertain any prospect of success.

which he has attained in schemes for the problematic and the unattainable.

He has maintained unbroken order and tranquillity within. He has forestalled or detected all plots in time, and has repressed them almost without bloodshed. He has steered France through those perils which have so often proved How far has Napoleon III. fulfilled the hope-fatal to her peace-the perils of a bad harvest ful auguries of those who anticipated that his with uncommon skill. It is true he has done rule might be a blessing for his country this by violating some sound principles of ecomight be the special blessing she most requir-nomic science; but France has too long been ed? Not certainly in all things-but on the accustomed to set these at naught for us to whole, well. He has not, as we hoped, gradu- judge her or her Government by our rules; ally relaxed the grasp of despotic authority and what is economically indefensible may which at first might be necessary. He has not sometimes be, at certain crises and in certain released the Press from any of its fetters. He countries, politically necessary. Unquestionhas not encouraged in the Senate or Legisla- ably the proceedings he adopted during the tive Chamber that freedom of speech and ac- scarcity of last year met the approval of the tion which we think he might safely have most sagacious men of France, and assuredly done, and which would have been a gradual a scarcity never before was attended with so preparation for a more constitutional regime. little misery or so little disturbance. He has not shown himself strong enough or In another and more questionable matter he courageous enough to disregard the hostility has violated strict economic principles for the of words. He has not allowed that full liberty sake of public tranquillity. He has carried on of speech without which a Government can public works of utility and embellishment on never be safe, or know that it is safe. He has a scale which his revenue scarcely warranted.

He has spent public money with the ostensible at once step into the position which, as an isoand avowed object of employing the people, lated and recent Sovereign, he did not possess, as well as of embellishing Paris. It is to be of one of the great Royal Conclave of Eufeared that, in pursuing this object, he has rope;-he would become, instead of a successspent vast sums which will never yield any ful adventurer, a recognized Potentate, treatadequate pecuniary return. But it is certain ing on terms of perfect equality with all other that by this means he has kept in industry and Monarchs: the faithful, trusted Ally of Engcomfort many thousand workmen who would land could no longer be looked upon as a otherwise have been suffering and turbulent, usurper. Accordingly, from the first, his confor "when building goes on briskly (says a duct towards us has been marked by the utmost French proverb), all trades go on briskly ";-openness, explicitness, friendliness, and integ and when we reflect that the most indispensa-rity. And he has gained his object. He has ble condition of prosperity and wealth is secu- humbled Nicholas, and he has rehabilitated rity and peace, we may admit that expenditure himself. The same man who landed at Bouwhich purchases these conditions may be a logne in 1840 with a single steamer and a few legitimate expenditure, if not carried too far friends on a desperate and abortive expedior continued too long. Certain it is that the tion, revisits it in 1854 to review a vast army nearly universal impression throughout France and receive the homage of countless spectais, that the public works which are now being tors. The same man who six years ago lived carried on, on such a stupendous scale, could in obscurity in London, scarcely able to pay not possibly be suspended without the most his tailor's and quite unable to pay his horseimminent and deadly peril. And we must dealer's bill-whom many looked upon as stu not forget, as a set-off to these un-economic pid and whom none looked upon as wise-of proceedings, that Napoleon III. has more ad- whom few augured well and whom few would vanced notions on the subject of Free Trade trust much we have just seen receiving the than almost any of his subjects, and is gradu- visit and the compliments of the Consort of ally introducing them and acting upon them our Queen, entertaining three Royal guests at as occasion offers. The edge of the wedge his table-one of them the son-in-law of the has already been driven in; and we may hope very Monarch whom he had succeeded-and for far more from him in this direction than admitted beyond all denial into the social cirfrom the freest assembly that was ever chosen cle of Royal personages. Nor is this change by universal suffrage. in his singular fortunes the only one, nor perhaps the greatest. We can imagine him smiling with even a more grim satisfaction as he contrasts the language of the English Press regarding him in 1852 and now; sitting with the Times or the Examiner of December, 1851 and of August, 1854 before him, and mar velling over the metamorphosis, the unmeasured abuse which was showered upon him at the former date, and the decorous respect and cordial praise with which he is spoken of now. The "seedy swell" and the "sanguinary and audacious ruffian," is now the polite and sagacious Emperor, and takes wine tête-à-tête with Prince Albert and King Leopold.

Finally, the conduct of the French Emperor in the Eastern Question has deserved and has met with its reward. His first step with regard to the "Holy Places" was inconsiderate and condemnable enough; but since then he has merited all praise. His proceedings have been consistent, dignified, sagacious, and strictly honorable. We do not, indeed, imagine that his bosom glowed with any sincere indignation against the oppressive and deceitful conduct of the Czar, or that he wept any actual tears of sympathy over the dangers or the woes of the unhappy Sultan, or that he has been guided in this matter by a disinterested regard to the dictates of abstract justice. But he at once perceived as a statesman that the projects of Russia, if not checked, would give her a preponderating influence in Europe incompatible with the pretensions of the Western Powers, and the maintenance of the existing equilibrium; and that if she ever obtained possession of Constantinople, she would clash dangerously with French influence in the Mediterranean. He was not sorry, either, in his secret soul, to have so early an opportunity afforded him of thwarting and mortifying the despot who refused to address him as "My Brother." But more than all, he saw at a glance, with his usual astute sagacity, that by acting cordially, honorably, and energetically with England in this matter, he would

From the Examiner.

THE NEW SORT OF DESPOTISM. THAT provoking old gentleman, M. de Tur got, whom the imperial virtue of gratitude still retains (with a clever secretary of legation at his elbow) at Madrid, will not allow a journal of the Spanish capital to call his government "despotism of a new sort" without trying to clap the plain-speaking Spaniard into limbo.

Stupid M. de Turgot! Why, surely the merit of the present government of France is just exactly that it is, not the old sort, but a new sort of despotism.

That its power is absolute and complete, is Louis Napoleon three years ago. To any one a fact about which only M. de Turgot could in the habit of reading the Examiner we have deceive himself. But in the imperial edicts no need to repel such an imputation; to others which exercise this absolute power it is attri- it may be as well to say, that there is not a buted to the "grace of God and the free will particle of truth in it. The language is not of the French people." That is-for we are ours, nor have we ever used any like it. The not here discussing the truth of its preten- only difference between ourselves and our sions, it rests its foundation and justifica- critic has been, that he welcomed a wrong for tion on mixed titles which other despotisms the mere chance of what it might bring, and would rather fall to pieces than unite. Well, therein at least is surely a very great novelty. Let us observe for a moment what has been the succession of governments in France.

that we as little then approved what we knew to be wrong, as we have since condemned what we believe to be right. In other words, we have thought that other sentiments were worth asserting in the world besides the sentiment of the till, and we never preferred the uninterrupted course of business and trade to every other earthly consideration.

In 1789 that course of events began (never to terminate) their descent on time, which the Restoration was an attempt to turn aside. The hope then was to restore the theory of the older system without the practice of its more What did we say in Dec. 1851? We stamped flagrant rottennesses. It failed. The revolu- with all the reprobation we felt, and still feel, tion of 1830 was, we grieve to have to say it, the violent assault upon a nation's liberties. an eighteen years' fraud, nearly two decades, Yet even then, when we feared the establishof dishonesty and dishonor. The Republic of ment of a military government that would 1848 became the more shame to those who complete the chain of despotic posts from made it so an impossibility for France. And Petersburg to the Pyrenees, we deprecated when all parties were quarrelling over the all quarrel with France. We were ready to spoil, there came round, as we had too long accept of any settlement of the French govexpected, not to condemn the needless crime ernment without scrutiny of its origin, or of that ushered it into existence, a Bonaparte the method, however fraudulent, by which the regime. It appeared first as a despotism of arrangement might have been effected. We the old sort, with small chances for continu- held that moral judgments were quite apart ance; but it has proved since to be such a from international relations. Nor from all despotism as France only can create or will this have we swerved in any respect. We ac endure, with aims in themselves nor irrational cept what is before us and are thankful. To or immoderate, with a head on its shoulders, whatever cause it may be owing in the unexwith sense to direct and courage to execute its pected march of affairs, to whatever unseen thoughts. control exercised by princes or by peoples, to whatever more intimate relations with England induced by the occurrences of the last eighteen months, the imperial government has belied the fears that were at first entertained of it. That chance of stability which was most endangered by its violent origin, it has derived, in the inscrutable working of events, from the very enmity and antagonism on which it might most have relied for coun

Our friend the Economist will here discover fresh reason to tax us with inconsistency, but we have no fear of such misconstruetion from unprejudiced readers. It is not because good has sprung out of evil that the evil is to receive any part of our worship or esteem; and it is not because evil preceded good that the good is to be rejected for the bad companionship. We have not so read history or studied

morals.

tenance and favor. We have welcomed in

The Economist is pleased to imagine the it, therefore, all with which we could symFrench Emperor smiling with a grim satisfac-pathize. We have praised the candor and tion as, with the Times and Examiner of December, 1851, and of August, 1854, before him, he contrasts the unmeasured abuse of the former date, and the decorous respect and cordial praise with which he is spoken of now.

The “seedy swell” and the "sanguinary and audacious ruffian" is now the polite and saga cious Emperor, and takes wine tête à tête with Prince Albert and King Leopold.

Our fair and friendly contemporary would of course impute to us that the words thus marked with inverted commas are either a quotation from this journal or at least a fair representation of our manner of speaking of

wisdom of its foreign policy. We have welcomed every nearer approach of the French people to our own. But we have never withdrawn our condemnation of an act which, while it perhaps only hastened by a brief selves have effected, left results which no space what the French people would themamount of energy or prudence may even yet prevent from exacting retribution; and it is not many weeks since we ventured to warn the French Emperor that constitutional gov ernments and free countries are best formed and adapted even for the emergencies of war.

The modifications of the imperial system into the form in which we now see it, and the

nection with "the free will of the People." This vice at least the imperial despotism of France is free from, and therefore, M. de Turgot, it is quite new.

acts of energy and wisdom that have distinguished it, have been best marked by its gradual approaches, and its ultimate earnest adhesion, to the English Alliance; and they receive a striking illustration this week from the With despotism at the same time, be it old decree organizing the police of Paris after the or be it new, we in England (if we may speak model of that of London. Now the advan- pace the Economist) have of course no symtages and indeed necessity of this alliance we pathy. But want of sympathy need not dishave been urging through every vicissitude able us from seeing what very different things of government in France since the fall of they are; and especially in this, that out of Louis Phillippe. We took the liberty of re- the one nothing good for the future can come, minding the French President in June, 1850, whereas the other, having once based itself on that the English alliance alone was that which the intelligent and progressive, can only be would give him weight, without demanding regarded as in a temporary or chrysalis state from him unpopular and dangerous conces- of existence, from which, if it endure long sions. Throughout his struggle with the As- enough, something brighter and better for sembly we said also that the Assembly was mankind will be sure to spring. For it there the most unpopular, and that he had the pub- can be nothing now merely stationary, retrolic voice with him. Of his abilities we never gressive, bigoted, stupid, old, obsolete, or despoke with the scorn attributed to us. On pressing. The condition of its revolutionary more than one occasion, even before his elec- life is, and must be, improvement and reform, tion to the Presidency, we have said that the of one sort and another. If it do not fulfil ridicule of the Strasbourg and Boulogne at- that condition, it will fall to pieces within the tempts proceeded on an assumption which sub-circle of its own legality. On the other hand, sequent events had disproved, and that after older despotisms can and do go on in their all he seemed to have known better than most wickednesses, their blunderings, their follies, people the ripeness of Louis Phillippe for his their stupidities, and their enormities, until all tumble. On two occasions we expressly de- that was valuable or noble in their subjects is fended him against contemptuous aspersions. destroyed. In July, 1851, we condemned the rejection by The older despotisms of Christian Europe, the Assembly of the measure for his re-elec- too, cling to each other, and hang together. tion, as a sin against the true democratic prin- Together they defend and subserve each ciple which should leave to a people its unfet- other, and together they will fall. Outside tered choice; and two weeks later we ex- their own Druidical circle, they are everypressed the same opinion we have always felt, where fickle and false. They astonish you that of the duties of his Presidency he had with promises, and are great in circulars and acquitted himself with credit, that he had filled protocols, yet other states can neither comprewith efficiency and general success that highest hend nor place faith in them. To-day they office in the State, and that he deserved and are allies, but to-morrow their alliance is noought to receive well of France. We are not where, and their armies exactly where they the less disposed now to think, therefore, that ought not to be. They cannot even be true in the sincerity and good faith he has displayed and faithful to their own instincts of self-interto England he deserves well of Englishmen, est; they do not dare to put in practice for and that the new sort of despotism he appears themselves what they are supreme at working anxious to establish is one that his supporters out in theory; and as for Europe, they only should be careful to distinguish from the old. know it as a field for the impious exercise of Yes-the Economist may think it as incon- Divine Right and the Grace of God. These sistent as M. de Turgot thinks it odd, but, are the older and sacerdotal despots of Eulooking to other great European States, we rope-the Heads of one Church, the Apostothink the present Napoleonian system, with lical Sovereigns of one another, the Leaders its political and municipal approaches to Eng-of Evangelical Pietism in a third. land, with its hearty alliance to a free State in But the new despotism-in which we have driving back the encroachments of a barba- to observe, whatever be the crime of its origin, rous and military tyranny, a very great that the element of chief magistracy, and not novelty indeed. The introduction of such of sacerdotalism, is predominant has shown, a despotism into Russia, Austria, or Prus- in reference to its external affairs, that it can sia, would have a marvellously beneficial have a rational, free, broad, and unselfish effect on the fortunes of the world. For policy; and this policy it can dare to carry these we hold to be still terribly marred out so faithfully and loyally as to heal old sores, and blighted by that older order of despotism obliterate old animosities, lay the foundations which fathers all its mischiefs, its oppressions, of a sincere union, and in this manner sway, its misrule, its bigotry, and its cruelties on in the sense of liberty, the fortunes of the world. "the grace of God," and repudiates all con- Hence it is that we give it all present support,

in the aspect it has assumed. Indeed there is would disgust France. Bear witness the some danger that, being what it still is, a mere huckstering and management of Louis form or modification of despotism, it should Phillippe. carry off praise which is less due to it than to the man who administers it. For why, because we were unprepared for a prudent use of power seized after such unscrupulous fashion, should we hesitate now to recognize in Louis Napoleon a man who has at least brought plain common sense into palaces where before it rarely ever entered, and to a people who, with all their faults, are full of great and noble qualities.

Another thing remains to be said. This new despotism being, as it says of itself, only a continuation of the Great Revolution of 1789, and a fulfilment of it, cannot long retain its pres ent shape and form. As now constituted, it can have no heirs, natural or adopted. It may cover Europe with its good effects, may change the face of France by its measures, may adorn Paris beyond the flights of imagination, may at last even introduce order into the finances, He reigns, he says, by the free choice of the put the church in due subordination to the French people. The despotism we have been state, and leave marks of its utility every. describing as so usefully at this time placed at where. But there is an early end of it. Death the head of the French people, we are told comes and it is gone. Neither the grace of and required to believe that they themselves God nor the free will of the French people placed there. That indeed is putting the cart has conferred a freehold upon it. It can only before the horse, and reversing in theory what endure by entering into a larger field of existtook place in action on the Boulevards. But ence by taking the nation into real and aoyet words have not a little of the force of things. tual partnership with it-by breathing through In such a recognition of popular election in its the national lungs, by speaking through the inauguration, there is after all involved an im- national voice, by using the national mind. mense amount of practical responsibility to the This it must do, if it would live; and this, as people, worth all the responsibility to Heaven yet, it has not begun to do. that ever Czar or Kaiser preached about. Mere Still, a new despotism that has done so much, responsibility, even of the former sort, does not, may do more. It may prepare the way for a we know, constitute the best kind of government restoration, not of imaginary, but of active -very far from it; but the despotism responsi- freedom. And this it could readily begin by ble only (in its pretensions) to Heaven, constitutes the very worst. The one is mere brute force, less or more enlightened; the other is, at least, intelligence of a high order. And if men are to be deprived, or can deprive themselves, of self-government, there may be comfort, and pride, and safety too, in living under a system that must conform to tests and criticism, as well as to a sense of dignity, and a knowledge of what is due to nationality, of which the other neither knows nor cares.

extending the powers and raising the charaeter of the Consuls-General of the Departments; by permitting them to become the undoubted exponents of the feelings and wishes of the local communities; in a word, by developing provincial franchises and freedom, instead of cutting and carving a great scheme of centralized representation, where all would be noise, intrigue, and mischief.

In that direction would appear to lie the true domestic interests of the new despotism. But there lies also the field of speculation, and into it we will not enter.

In one sense, then, the new despotism is a continuation of the Great Revolution of France. It acknowledges the supreme sovereignty of the What we desired was to separate the desnation; it repudiates all privileges; it works potism of Louis Napoleon from the despotout its own system on the alleged basis of ism of Nicholas or Francis, and to show that equality of rights. It denies the nation the the feeling with which this journal now offers highest of all rights, but it affects, in their ex- him support is the same that formerly resisted ercise, to be substituted for the nation; and him. That done, we can but say, as Sterne though it spends on itself right liberally not said to the starling when happy in its cage: only the million sterling appropriated by the "still, SLAVERY, thou art a bitter draught; budget of expenses, but the enforced econo- and though thousands, in all ages, have drunk mies of all the ministries besides and re- of thy cup, thou art not on that account the wards lavishly all its instruments, nevertheless less bitter." we cannot say that at such a time as this the money is not well spent ; for the work of internal improvement and of external freedom is priceless. Bad government is dear at any price; but where the state is concentrated in a single man, his expenditure ceases in a great measure to have a personal character, and a new despotism cannot afford to be shabby, or mean, or even economical. That, indeed,

From The Times.

LIFE IN AUSTRALIA. The following extracts from the correspondence of a man who gave up a good situation of £300 a year to go to the diggings give a lively picture of the ups and downs of life in Australia: