TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGE IN FRANCE. LOUIS Napoleon has taken the first great step upon a downward path. He has done it, as he does most things, with an audacity and a completeness, a contempt for worn-put etiquettes, a keen comprehension of the times and the nation in which he lives, which mark the immeasurable distance be- tween him and the herd of unscientific despots, but his step is downward nevertheless. The Caesar has once more excited the admiration of Europe, but it is by a blow at Cresdrism. For weeks past a sough, arising no one knew whence, had passed through the Continent, announcing the Empire in danger and a financial crisis at hand. The Empire was drifting fast to the gulf which sooner or later swallows up all autocracies. Orleanists rubbed their hands, for they, too, understand their epoch, and know that no civilized State can survive a national bankruptcy. Red Republicans, in exile or hiding, smiled grimly at the accession of strength which they knew was inevitable from distress, and Europe watched restlessly to see if the solution would not be aggressive war. Thinking men waited eagerly for the explosion they saw must follow these signs, when suddenly the Emperor spoke. In a decree, which it is impossible to read without a gasp of angry applause, Louis Napoleon acknowledged a situation worse than his worst enemies had depicted, looked straight down into the depths of the gulf, and choked it by fling- ing in his own most cherished prerogatives. The deficit, says M. Fould—and the clever Jew who has just beaten the Cabinet may be trusted not to exaggerate—is forty millions sterling, a sum which even in England would be considered frightful. It has been created in this wise. The regular revenue of France nearly meets its common expenditure, but Cresarisni has ends other than simple government. It has public works to perform which must strike the imagination, rivers to control, railways to build, cultivations to foster, camps to construct, cities to clear for the ready path of the soldiery. Every commune requires a subvention, every industry aid, and the Emperor, as earthly Providence, must always appear beneficent. One and the same power must decree an an- nexation, and arrest the effects of an inundation, rebuke the gendarmerie and repair a bad harvest, design the new bridges, and prepare to restore the birds necessary to the agriculture of France. On all such questions the Emperor decides of his own mere will. He signs a decree for a supplementary credit, and Pactolus opens before the applicant. Of course, as money was to be had for the asking, eskers were many, and the Emperor, who, like most indolent men, is a bad financier, and who has, besides, the natural graciousness often found compatible with cruel indifference, has sent away none disappointed. When money failed, the Minister used his credit, or issued Exchequer bills, or borrowed from Paris, or placed the military fund on the Stock-book, or asked the Bank for a loan, or discounted the future in the best way be could. The demands, however, came faster and faster, and though the remanets of the last war loan cleared off much, the evil increased till the floating account of the empire rose to forty millions, more than the cost of the Russian war, and nearly a third more than that of the Italian cam- paign. The first shock, it was evident, must bring down this fabric of paper, and it came in the shape of a very deficient harvest. The State bought corn, helped others to buy corn, helped the municipalities, helped the bakers, helped the dangerous classes, till expenditure threatened to grow illimitable, and the Emperor awoke. M. Fould, the only administrative economist at his disposal, was sent for, his programme accepted, and the Emperor, after some days of discussion, published the decree of which this is the key- note : " The only efficacious means to attain an invariable budget Is to resolutely abandon the power which appertains to me of opening, a fresh credit in the absence of the Chamber. "Faithful to my origin, I neither regard my prerogative as a slimed deposit which cannot be touched, nor as an heritage from my ancestors which must be transmitted intact to my son. " Elected by the people and representing their interests, I shall always abandon, without regret, every prerogative use- less for the good of the public, as I shall likewise preserve unshaken in my bands all power which is indispensable for the tranquillity and prosperity of the country." There is something noble, something one scarcely expects from kings, in the frankness of this declaration, and its nobleness may, perhaps, blind Frenchmen for an hour to the truth which it reveals. Cmsarism has broken down in one essential department of life. By the confession of the Caesar himself, it is unable, with all its enormous power, to meet a financial crisis, and in tho most practical of all State questions is compelled to fall back on the Parliamentary sys- tem it has so long denounced as one rich only in" unpractical" rhetoric. It is not a pleasant confession for a system whose claim to exist is that it is wiser, more prescient, and more resourceful than the " compromise called constitutionalism." What kind of wisdom is that which, with the wealth of a nation to manage, is still unable to count? Or what is the value of the prescience which foresees everything except ruin, and of the resources which only failjust when the first strain begins The Emperor is wise beyond the wisdom of kings in looking to his Chambers for aid, but if they are stronger, and more statesmanlike, and more reliable than himself in this vital department of State, they may be so in all. Parliament is the delis es, ma- china' summoned by Louis Napoleon, and shall not the dew govern P The Chambers will not vote without argu- ment, or meet such a demand without an appeal to the people, and it is not while auditing a bankrupt's accounts that the auditors think him worthy to rule. The Chambers, as M. Fould hints, are doubtless " devoted," but they are Chambers still, and the irrepressible instinct of all such bodies is to buy power with money. Emile 011ivier is not likely to be less trenchant because his prophecies are fulfilled, uor will the Legitimists be less bitter because the Empire has spent too much in assailing their most cherished ideas. Nor can the Emperor, just as he appeals to his Parliament, limit its right of speech, or do any act which weakens the power he has evoked in his own behalf. One does not blaspheme Hercules just as the cart is moving. Louis Napoleon must willingly or unwillingly develop Parliamentary power, and every such development, though it does not of necessity threaten him- self, strikes hard at the system IN Bich constitutes his distinc- tive claim to reign. If the Caesar cannot declare war, or open a loan, or create a department, or pay for an inundation, or transform a city, or send out an expedition, or rectify frontiers, without the consent of the Chambers, what is he Caesar for ? Simply that he may repress liberty ? It is bold, perhaps even grand, for the Emperor to appeal so frankly to his popular origin, to disclaim alike the divine right and the here- ditary obligation, but then he must be judged by the stan- dard which he has himself elected. If, as he affirms, the sole claim to power is capacity to use it for the good of the people, and he himself declares that Parliament has the greater capacity, which of the two must rule ? The Emperor's courage has saved him for the hour, for, with a constitutional budget, a loan is not excessively diffi- cult, and, as we have often remarked, it is not France but the Empire whose finance is endangered by the lavishness inherent in despotism. But to secure himself he has given up the bad prerogatives which struck the popular imagina- tion; and will, like the Constantine he so nearly resembles, find that in abolishing the worship of Caesar, he has de- stroyed the principle on which alone the right of the Caesar can rest.
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