the ultra party with the term of "reaction," appears, as yet, to be nothing but the acceptation of a republic based upon the principles of peace and order; but, at the same time, an opposition to all views and doctrines likely to produce disorder and anarchy. And yet still, in another sense, the feeling of the country at large cannot be said to be strictly republican the "true men" might be in vain sought except in the disorderly, tumultuous, excitable, and easily stirred populations of the great manufacturing towns.

Shortly after the appointment of the obnoxious commissaries, several causes arose to increase the discontent of the departments, not only among the ci-devant upper and middling classes, but among the lower classes, -particularly in the agricultural districts, and more especially among that peasant population that has so universally in France acquired a little property in land. One of these causes was the imposition of the new taxes. Under the former régime, France had been crushed down by the weight of its impositions. One of the first advantages of the republic was announced, in official proclamations, to consist in the removal of taxes, and in the enormous diminution of state expenses necessarily attendant upon a republican form of government. Already the country people looked to a release from the greater part of their obligations: the system of "no taxes at all," they thought, in their naïveté, was to follow; instead of which came very shortly the decree, begging the country for the loan of a certain proportion of the taxes for the ensuing year beforehand, in order to meet the deficiencies in the finances, followed up almost immediately by the more imperative ordinance, imposing the additional 45 per cent in support of the increased, not diminished, expenses of the republican government. In many parts of the country the peasant population refused to pay this additional tax, or responded only to the demand with that equivocal answer, so characteristic of the French peasant, "We'll see about it." It nevertheless, however, refused to pay at the same time the rents of its landlords, upon the pretext that it was ruined by the revolution, and the

exactions of the republic. It was in vain that the government protested that these measures were necessitated by the financial dilapidations of the dethroned dynasty. Clear - sighted enough where their own interests are concerned, the French peasants in the provinces replied by denunciations of that odious Paris. Paris, they declared, had chosen to make for the nonce a revolution in which they had not aided, and which they had not desired; and then Paris turned to its own advantage alone the results of that revolution. It had imposed upon all France, by calling for resources from a country already drained, to be lavishly squandered in rewarding the idleness of its own tumultuous and unruly inhabitants among the working-classes, which it dreaded, by the establishment of its expensive socalled ateliers nationaux, and by paying fresh troops under the name of gardes mobiles,-when the standing army was already such a burden to the country,-for the sake of draining off and regularising the worst dregs of its own population, and satisfying the caprices of a riotous Parisian mob, that chose to object to the presence of the old military force among it, while it accepted a new defensive and repressive force, in addition to the former, under a new title. Upon such questions, of vital importance to their own interests, the country people of the provinces were not disposed to listen to argument or reason; and in the discontent at the exorbitant exactions of the capital the jealousy of the departments towards Paris waxed stronger and stronger.

Another cause, which added greatly to the increasing apprehension and aversion was the preaching of the communist doctrines in Paris, upon the first establishment of republican principles, and the support apparently given to these wild and spoliating principles by certain members of the Provisional Government itself. If there be any feeling more alive than any other in the breast of the French peasant, it is that attached to the acquirement and the possession of landed property in however humble a form, be it but a small field or a tiny vineyard. If he has any hope, any ambition, any sentiment, which he thinks worth living for, it is the extension, by any and every

means, of his small domain. On the fact of this possession are concentrated all the mainspring motives and agencies of his whole existence-in this, his industry, his talent, his cunning, his thoughts, his affections, his very love for his children, to whom he hopes to transmit it. The great mobile of the character of the French peasant is self-interest in this respect. The doctrines, then, which preached that the possession of all landed property by individuals is an infamous spoliation of the res publica, filled the country people in the provinces with the liveliest alarm, and contributed to establish a still greater hatred to a state of things that tended to produce results so fatally detrimental to all that they held dear. The Parisian, almost as blindly ignorant of the state of his own country-which, in his theory that Paris is all France, he looks upon with indifference, if not contempt- as he is proverbially utterly ignorant of every other country beyond the frontiers of France, even the most neighbouring and, in fact, of every thing that touches upon geography or the state of nations, of which he has only the vaguest and most incorrect notions thought that all his wild fraternity schemes, developed and accepted by those who possessed nothing, in the capital, would be received with enthusiasm also by the "miserable, oppressed, and tyrannised inhabitant of the fields and plains ;"-such was the language used, and eagerly caught up. The Parisian soon found, by experience, that he had made a gross mistake. The emissaries sent down into the provinces by the professors and high-priests of communism, or by the ultra clubs, and supported, there is every reason to believe, by the members of the government before alluded to, met only with the most active repulsion. Their Utopian ideas of universal fraternity and spoliation of property were scorned, scouted, and opposed themselves were hooted, peited, almost lapidated as incendiary enemies of the peasant. "The innocent and humble inhabitant of the fields" was indignant, insulted, aggrieved, that he should be so contemptuously considered "miserable and oppressed:" he showed himself in the light of the landed proprietor, the most avariciously interested in the

possession of property, and by no means the naïf individual the Parisian had been accustomed to believe him, according to his text-books of vaudevilles and melodramas. The agents of communistic doctrines were forced to retreat in dudgeon, to declare the French peasant the most ignorant and pig-headed animal upon earth, still under the yoke of the tyrants, and endoctriné by the aristocrats; and to avow that the departments were not ripe for the enlightenment of communism, perhaps even to denounce them as infamously reactionary. Certain it is that communistic doctrines found no enthusiastic disciples in the country; or, if the propagandism made any steps, it was after the fashion so characteristically depicted in a caricature published by the Charivari, in which a peasant appears before the mayor of his commune to say, that, since a general partage des biens is to take place, he puts down his name for the château, but makes a most wofully wry face upon hearing that his own field has been already divided among the paupers of the village. The propagation of communism, then, only excited fears instead of hopes, consternation instead of joy, and tended still more to indispose the country people, and excite their aversion and discontent towards a state of things likely to become so prejudicial to their interests: more than ever, they were disposed to revolt.

In this state was the feeling of the country at large when the general elections came on, accompanied by all the violence of party manœuvre to support the principles of ultra-republicanism, advocated by the unscrupulous minister of the nation; but all these efforts tended only to indispose it still more, and to call forth, in spite of the desperate opposition made, its sense in favour of respect of property, order, and moderatism of views in the republic, if republic there was to be. As is well known, an immense majority of those men of moderate principles, whom all the ill-judged and hateful efforts of the violent and reckless republicans at the head of affairs had so greatly contributed to form into a decided, self-conscious, and compact party of opponents, was returned to the Assembly. Most of the leading men of the liberal party under

the former dynasty, who had stood forward as friends of progressive reform, but not as opponents to the constitutional monarchy principle, were likewise elected, with great majorities, by the suffrages of the people. The country declared its will to be against the views of the principal and stirring influence which emanated from the reckless man who governed the interior affairs of the country in the capital. But it did not forget, at the same time, and it still bears an inveterate grudge to the violent agents of that ultra-republicanism, chiefly concentrated in Paris, who had filled the country with disorder, tumult, terror, and, in some cases, bloodshed, by the atrocious and outrageous means it placed in the hands of a riotous mob to overawe them, and sway the direction of the elections, and by the base manœuvres employed to attain their ends. It does not forget the despotism of certain commissaries, who, after having their own lists of ultra-democratic candidates, whom they intended to force down the throats of the electors, printed, threatened the printer, who should dare to print any other, with their high displeasure, and caused them to shut up their press. It does not forget the seizure of those papers that proposed moderate candidates, with every attempt to strangle in practice that liberty of the press which was so clamorously claimed in theory. It does not forget the voters' lists torn from the hands of voters by a purposely excited mob. It does not forget the odious manoeuvre by which agents were largely paid and sent about to cry "Vive Henri V." in the streets of towns, in order to induce the belief in a Bourbonist reactionary party, and thus rouse the passions and feelings of the flattered and declamationintoxicated mob against the moderates, regardless of the consequences-of the animosity and the bloodshed. It does not forget the intimidation, the threat of fire and sword, the opposition by force to the voting of whole villages suspected of moderatism-the collision, the constraint, the conflict, the violence. It does not forget all this, nor also that it owes the outrage, the alarm, and the suffering, the ruin to peace and order, to commerce, to well-being, to fortune, to that central power which turned a legion

of demons upon it, in the shape of revolutionary emissaries and agents. It forgets still less the scenes of Limoges, where a mob were turned loose into the polling-house to destroy the votes, drive out the national guards, disarm these defenders of order and right, and form a mob government, to rule and terrorise the town, while Master Commissary looked on, and told the people that it did well, and laughed in his sleeve. It forgets still less the fury of the disappointed upon the result of the elections, their incitements to insurrections, their preachings of armed resistance for the sake of annulling the elections, obtained, it must never be forgotten, by universal suffrage, in face of their culpable manoeuvres: the emissaries again sent down from the clubs, and with an apparent connivance of certain ultra-members of the government, from the charge of which, now more than ever since the conspiracy of the 15th May, they will scarcely be able to acquit themselves: the efforts of these emissaries to make the easily excited and tumultuous lower classes take up arms, and the bloody conflicts in the streets of Rouen: the complicity of the very magistrates appointed by these members of the government-the terror and the bloodshed, and then the cry of the furious ultras that the people had been treacherously assassinated-the conspiracies and incendiary projects of the vanquished at Marseilles, the troubles of Lisle, of Amiens, of Lyons, of Aubusson, of Rhodez, of Toulouse, of Carcassonne-why swell the list of names? -of almost every town in France, all with the same intent of destroying those elections of representatives which the country had proclaimed in the sense of order and of moderatism. It forgets still less the dangers of that same 15th May, when the government was for a few hours overthrown, by the disorderly, the disappointed, the discontented, the violent ultra republicans, the conspirators of Paris,

when some of those, who had been formerly their rulers, were arrested as accomplices, and others still in power can scarcely yet again avoid the accusation and conviction of complicity.

All the other troubles of this distracted country, since the revolution of February, may be passed over-the

ruin to commerce, the poverty, misery, and want, the military revolts excited by the same emissaries to cause divisions in the army, as likewise the unhappy troubles of Nismes, where the disturbances took religious tendency-as a conflict of creeds between Roman Catholics and Protestants, rather than a political or even a social character, although they still bore evidence of the disorder of the times and the disturbance of the country. The elections, then, contributed more powerfully than ever to the fermentation, the discontent, the mistrust, and the ill-will of the country.

In this state of France, with the feeling of impatient jealousy and irritation against tyranny and despotism expressed by the departments towards the capital, with the evident disunion between the provinces and Paris, what are likely to be the destinies of the Republic hereafter? Again it must be said-who can tell, who foresee, who predict? The Republic has been accepted, and is maintained, from a love of order and the status quo: but there is no enthusiasm, no admiration for the republican form of government throughout the country at large; there is, at most, indifference to any government, whatever it may be, provided it but insure the stability and prosperity of the country. If an opinion may be hazarded, however, it is, that the danger to the present established form of things will not arise so much from the conflict of contending parties in the capital, as from the discontent, disaffection, jealousy, and, perhaps, final outbreak and resistance of the departments. Terrorism has had its day; and it would be difficult, if not impossible, to apply the system once again to the country in its present state. What other means will the violent possess-what coercive measures, if, when parties come to an issue, the wearied and disgusted country should rise to protest against the disorders of Republican Paris? There seem at present to be none. The result of such an outbreak would be inevitable civil war. The strong instance before alluded to, of the determination of the departments to assert a will of their own, was given

VOL. LXIV.-NO. CCCXCIII.

in a very striking manner in the affair of the 15th May. One of the conspirators got possession of the electric telegraph at the Home Office, and sent down despatches into all the provinces, to inform the country that the Assembly was dissolved, and the new government of the ultra-anarchist party had taken the reins of power. Instead of being awed into submission as heretofore, instead of calmly and resignedly accepting the fait accompli as was their wont, the departments immediately rose to protest against the new revolution of Paris. Before

2

a counter-despatch could be sent down into the provinces, to let them know that the former order of things was restored, the national guards of all the great towns were up and out, with the cry "to arms!" and it was resolved to march upon Paris. It was not only in the towns within a day's journey of the capital that the movement was spontaneously made. In the furthest parts of the country, from the cities of Avignon, Marseilles, Nismes, and all the south of France, the national guards were already on their way towards the capital, before the information that declared the more satisfactory result of the day could be made public. It is more than probable, then, that, should a desperate faction ever seize upon the power, or even should a close conflict of parties further endanger the safety of the country and its tottering welfare, that the provinces would again take up arms against Paris, and that a civil war would be the result.

This is rather a suggestion hazarded, than a prediction made, as to the future fate of the French republic. Whatever that future may be, an uneasy submission on the part of a great anti-republican majority to the active agency of a small republican minority-but, at the same time, a desire of maintaining a government, whatever it may be, if supportable, for tranquillity's sake; a feeling of humiliation and degradation in this utter submission to the will of Paris throughout the country-but, at the same time, an apparent growing determination eventually to resist that will, should it at last prove intolerable such is the present state of Republican France.

E

AUSTRALIA is the greatest accession to substantial power ever made by England. It is the gift of a Continent, unstained by war, usurpation, or the sufferings of a people. But even this is but a narrow view of its value. It is the addition of a territory, almost boundless, to the possessions of mankind; a location for a new family of man, capable of supporting a population equal to that of Europe; or probably, from its command of the ocean, and from the improved systems, not merely of commercial communication, but of agriculture itself, capable of supplying the wants of double the population of Europe. It is, in fact, the virtual future addition of three hundred millions of human beings, who otherwise would not have existed. And besides all this, and perhaps of a higher order than all, is the transfer of English civilisation, laws, habits, industrial activity, and national freedom, to the richest, but the most abject countries of the globe; an imperial England at the Antipodes, securing, invigorating, and crowning all its benefits by its religion.

Within the last fifty years, the population of the British islands has nearly tripled; it is increasing in England alone at the rate of a thousand a day. In every kingdom of the Continent it is increasing in an immense ratio. The population is becoming too great for the means of existence. Every trade is overworked, every profession is overstocked, every expedient for a livelihood threatens to be exhausted under this vast and perpetual influx of life; and the question of questions is, How is this burthen to be lightened?

There can be but one answer,-Emigration. For the last century, common sense, urged by common necessity, directed the stream of this emigration to the great outlying regions of the western world. North America was the chief recipient. Since the conquest of Canada, annual thousands had directed their emigra

tion to the British possessions: the conquest of the Cape has drawn a large body of settlers to its fine climate; but Australia remained, and remains, for the grand future field of British emigration.

The subject has again come before the British public with additional interest. The Irish famine, the British financial difficulties, and the palpable hazard of leaving a vast pauperism to grow up in ignorance, have absolutely compelled an effort to relieve the country. A motion has just been made in Parliament by Lord Ashley, giving the most startling details of the infant population; and demanding the means of sending at least its orphan portion to some of those colonial possessions, where they may be trained to habits of industry, and have at least a chance of an honest existence. We shall give a few of these details, and they are of the very first importance to humanity. On the 6th of June Lord Ashley brought in a resolution, "That it is expedient that means be annually provided for the voluntary emigration, to some one of her Majesty's colonies, of a certain number of young persons of both sexes, who have been educated in the schools, ordinarily called • ragged schools,' in and about the metropolis." In the speech preparatory to this resolution, a variety of statements were made, obtained from the clergy and laity of London. It was ascertained that the number of children, either deserted by their parents, or sent out by their parents to beg and steal, could not be less than 30,000 in the metropolis alone. Their habits were filthy, wretched, and depraved. Their places of living by day were the streets, and by night every conceivable haunt of misery and sin. They had no alternative but to starve, or to grow up into professional thieves, perhaps murderers. Of the general population, the police reports stated, that in 1847 there had been taken into custody 62,181 individuals of