LOTUS NAPOLEON ON CORNHILL.
"TIE Empire " has been recognized in London. We did not ex- pect it quite so soon, but commerce anticipates the invasion, and the supply of British allegiance to French supremacy comes before the demand. The Submarine Telegraph Company stationed on Cornhill tells of the coming Empire, and makes it the crowning subject in the first series of messages exchanged between Paris and London. Lord Palmerston was snubbed for quoting a pamph- let on the amicable reception of the French invaders, published by Mr. Charles Gilpin ; but the Peace-pamphleteer was only the harbinger of the more formal proceedings on Monday last. The City of London is but secondary to that of Sevres, and hastens to welcome the potentate whose "star" is said to shed its diverging beams equally on France and England.
There is indeed in this close alliance between one of the greatest speculators in the world, as the exalted patron of many railways is reported to be, and our own commercial class, something pro- foundly to move inquiry. Louis Napoleon has dabbled in stock- jobbing; the leading members of our shareholding public are now dabbling in empiremongery : the stockjobber has a hand in the Empire, and the Emperor has a hand in the stockjobbing. It is tit for tat; and curiosity is piqued to know whether there is more in the alliance than appears above the surface? Imagination, in- deed, recognizes that further something as possible : for example, appointed as a Hudson to the Paris markets, the Emperor-elect might prove a most convenient friend for any speculators in Lon- don ; on the other hand, to be proclaimed Emperor by the com- mercial body of London, is an incidental advantage to the great speculator in politics. Now it does not always happen that things so patly fitted to each other come by chance. It is possible,
indeed, to suppose that there may be not only parallelism of ac- tion, but even that capital may be profitably transferred: a lucky investment in French Shares might be profitable, both to the indi- vidual speculator viewing chances from a very exalted and con- venient position, and for his sleeping partners at a distance; and the Empire may have its prospective profits for those who are
7-1 willing to supply capital. Louis Napoleon any partners? Is it " L. N. and Co.," with firms both in Paris and London?
Unless there were a practical motive of some sort, it is not easy to estimate the incentive which can make commercial men step out of their beat in order to teach the world state policy. What have English share-dabblers to do with the recognition of a French Em- pire, as yet nonexistent, as yet necessarily ignored by our own State officers P What peculiar insight into the future, or into present expediency, reigns on Cornhill, that it should profess to deal en- lightenment around the land, and tell working politicians what course to take ? It is the absence of apparent motive that sets conjecture wildly wandering in search of the real motive.
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