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 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow 117.: FRENCH NEWS [26] EXAMINER, 11 SEPT., 1831, P. 584 - The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II

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

117.: FRENCH NEWS [26] EXAMINER, 11 SEPT., 1831, P. 584 - John Stuart Mill, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II [1831]

Edition used:

The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II, 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.

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117.

FRENCH NEWS [26]

EXAMINER, 11 SEPT., 1831, P. 584

For the entry in Mill’s bibliography, see No. 116. The summary, headed “London, September 11,” is listed as “Article on France” and enclosed in square brackets in the Somerville College set.

the commission, or Select Committee, appointed by the French Chamber of Deputies to examine and report upon the proposed law relative to the Peerage,1 is expected almost immediately to present its report. A day will then be immediately appointed for the commencement of the debate.

In the mean while the Chamber has afforded an agreeable earnest of its disposition to retrenchment, by making a reduction of one half in the emoluments of its own President, and its two executive officers termed Quaestors. One of the Paris correspondents of The Times considers this measure to be of most evil augury, and writes with great apprehension of the spirit of economy which is abroad.2 We hope that this specimen of the juste-milieu party so warmly espoused by The Times, will not be lost upon the readers of that journal.

The advantages of a cheap government are visible by the light of mere good intentions. We fear that less is to be expected from the Chamber wherever reading, meditation, and political experience, are among the requisites of practical wisdom. The new members who compose nearly half the Chamber, consist chiefly of obscure men, who have never stirred, either bodily or mentally, out of their little country village. This is to be ascribed to a variety of causes. One cause is the needless and mischievous provision of the Charter, by which every department is required to select at least half its deputies from the inhabitants of the department.3 Another is the narrow limits within which the choice of the constituency is still restrained, by the pecuniary conditions of eligibility. A third is the breaking up of the constituent body into small fractions, by the narrow extent of the electoral districts; many of which do not muster more than from two to three hundred electors, who do not include any inhabitants of considerable towns, nor even are under the habitual influence of such, by personal intercourse either in politics or daily life. Neither must we omit to observe, that most of the politicians who figured in public affairs before the revolution of 1830 were disqualified by their servile habits, and retrograde or stationary spirit, from being the representatives of electors who repudiate those habits and that spirit, and whose choice, consequently, was unavoidably made, in a great measure, from the young or the untried.

Three elections have lately taken place for Paris, Lunéville, and Boulogne; all have terminated in favour of the ministerial candidates. The last of the three is a victory, for the retiring member belonged to the Opposition. In the other two cases the predecessors of the new members were of the same politics as themselves.

The remarks of our Paris correspondent on the character and disposition of the Chamber will be read with interest.4

[1 ]For the background, see No. 115.

[2 ]See Letter from Paris Correspondent (6 Sept.), The Times, 9 Sept., 1831, p. 4.

[3 ]Charter (1814), Art. 42, continued in Charter (1830), Art. 36.

[4 ]Maillefer, “Foreign Intelligence. France” (31 Aug., 1831), Examiner, 11 Sept., p. 583.