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Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow 74.: FRENCH NEWS [10] EXAMINER, 9 JAN., 1831, PP. 24-5 - The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXII - Newspaper Writings December 1822 - July 1831 Part I

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Subject Area: Political Theory
Collection: The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill

74.: FRENCH NEWS [10] EXAMINER, 9 JAN., 1831, PP. 24-5 - John Stuart Mill, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXII - Newspaper Writings December 1822 - July 1831 Part I [1822]

Edition used:

The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXII - Newspaper Writings December 1822 - July 1831 Part I, ed. Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson, Introduction by Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986).

Part of: Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, in 33 vols.

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


74.

FRENCH NEWS [10]

EXAMINER, 9 JAN., 1831, PP. 24-5

For the entry in Mill’s bibliography, see No. 55. The article is headed “London, January 9.” In the Somerville College index it is listed as “Article on France”; Mill’s inked closing square bracket comes before the final paragraph of the article, on Russia and Poland, which is therefore not included.

a very mischievous regulation of the French Chambers (whose rules are, in many other respects, superior to those of our parliament) requires that all propositions, before they can be publicly discussed, shall be submitted to the Chamber sitting in bureaux or committees, and deliberating in secret. Unless three of the nine bureaux sanction the proposition, it drops.1 The bureaux have as yet come to no decision on the Parliamentary Reform Bill;2 and it is said that there have been stormy debates in the secret sittings. No one has the least expectation that the Bill will pass, unless mutilated and made almost worthless.

The popular and the oligarchical party are said to be marshalling and organizing their strength for the approaching contest; and it is added that M. Guizot and his friends, with their usual predilection for half measures, are forming a middle party, and endeavouring to trim the balance. The fault of these men is not in their intentions; and their acquirements and powers of mind no one disputes. Their error is a bigotted and coxcombical devotion to their own ways and their own disciples; and incapacity of conceiving that the government can go on well unless it goes precisely as they have settled beforehand.

[1 ]For details, see No. 68, n7.

[2 ]I.e., the Election law. See No. 72, n3.