NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE French Government has taken a step not of very great im- portance in itself, but highly important in its bearing, vindi- eating our own country as an ally. Two of the Paris journals, the Pays and the Patrie, have put forward something more than insinuations that troubles on the continent, particularly in Sicily, were fomented by our Foreign Office in order to thwart the Em- peror Napoleon. A paragraph correcting this false statement respecting a near ally has been officially sent to the Pays and the Patrie, and has been inserted as formally " communique." In order to appreciate this step, we must recall the circumstances under which it is taken. The two journals are " semi-official," or rather not official at all. They are what in England we should call " ministerial" ; that is, the managers of the papers think it politic, or profitable, to afford a general support to the Government of France ; that Governnment, however, being under no contract, and being in no way answerable for the views put forth. The writers volunteer to do what they suppose to be the dirty work of the Government, especially in the way of get- ting up stories detrimental to any party, at home or abroad, which thwarts the Government. Hence the recent story about Sicily. We must remember that a certain plausible foundation was furnished for the fiction, by the old relations of England with Sicily, in 1812, 1820, and 1848 ; relations which did not result very satisfactorily to the Sicilians, and have certainly not been renewed in the present day. In reality, there was not the slightest foundation for the tale ; but these old re- miniscences give to it an air of verisimilitude. In Lon- don, it would have sufficed to leave the story to refute itself ; and the Emperor Napoleon might, if he had looked only to a short-sighted policy, have been content to leave an ally .under an imputation which certainly did not originate with any of his own officials. To vindicate English policy and conduct is not popular with all parties in France ; but it is not to the true interest of the Emperor that the conduct of his ally, and there- fore of his own political relations, should be misunderstood by the French nation. A sound judgment, as well as a more '-generous feeling, unquestionably dictated the recent con- tradiction.
