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 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow 241.: FRENCH NEWS [90] EXAMINER, 9 MAR., 1834, P. 154 - 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

241.: FRENCH NEWS [90] EXAMINER, 9 MAR., 1834, P. 154 - 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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Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


241.

FRENCH NEWS [90]

EXAMINER, 9 MAR., 1834, P. 154

This article, headed “London: March 9, 1834,” is not entered in Mill’s bibliography, but in the Somerville College set of the Examiner it is listed as “Article on France.”

the french government has introduced the threatened measure against Political Societies.1 All such Associations, if exceeding the number of nineteen persons, were already illegal;2 but many of them evaded the law by subdividing themselves into smaller Societies, not exceeding the lawful number of members. The present law is intended to meet this evasion. Our prophecy of last week has been more than verified: this very Bill sets aside Jury trial.3 It provides that all infractions of itself shall be tried before the Tribunal of Correctional Police, which decides without a Jury. The reason is, that Paris Juries always acquit persons who are prosecuted for this offence.

Truly there was no very urgent necessity for dispensing with Juries; for if these men obtain a verdict once in twelve times, the sentence in that one case makes ample amends for the eleven failures. M. Cabet, a Member of the Chamber of Deputies, having been found guilty of a libel on the King, in a Newspaper of which he is editor and proprietor, has been sentenced to two years’ imprisonment and privation of “civil rights” for two years more.4 By this he loses his seat in the Chamber, his rights as an elector, the power of holding any public office, and even of giving testimony in a Court of Justice, except under certain restrictions.

We have often cause to complain of English Judges, but it must be confessed that, in comparison with the French, they are high-minded patriots. The case of M. Carrel would prove, if it were not known before, that there is no stretch of insolent tyranny which French Judges are not eager to perpetrate at the bidding of power.

[1 ]For the measure, see No. 238, n2.

[2 ]By Art. 291 of the Code pénal (Bull. 277 bis, No. 1 bis [12 Feb., 1810]).

[3 ]By its Art. 3.

[4 ]Cabet was called before the Cour d’Assises de la Seine on 28 Feb. for libels in the Populaire (a republican paper founded by him in September 1833) on 12 and 19 Jan., 1834; his sentence also included a fine of 4000 francs. See Moniteur, 1834, pp. 449-50.