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 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow 246.: FRENCH NEWS [93] EXAMINER, 6 APR., 1834, P. 215 - 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

246.: FRENCH NEWS [93] EXAMINER, 6 APR., 1834, P. 215 - John Stuart Mill, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II [1831]

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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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FRENCH NEWS [93]

EXAMINER, 6 APR., 1834, P. 215

This article is headed “London, April 6, 1834.” The entry in Mill’s bibliography covers this and Nos. 247, 249, and 250: “The summary of French news in the Examiner of 6th, 13th, 20th, and 27th April 1834” (MacMinn, p. 39). This report is listed in the Somerville College set of the Examiner as “Article on France.”

the law prohibiting all associations in France, without the previous license of the government, has passed the Chamber of Deputies, after a long debate, without the slightest modification.1 The government refused to tolerate the existence of societies even for purposes the most remote from politics, lest under their cover political associations should find shelter. They refused also to introduce a clause declaring the law to be temporary.

After thus immolating one of the most valuable liberties of their country to the terrors and vindictiveness of Louis-Philippe, the Chamber has left the ministers in a minority on a question where they were probably in the right. The claims of American subjects upon the French government, for losses caused by Napoleon’s anti-commercial decrees,2 have remained unsettled to this day. The French government has at last signed a convention with the United States for the liquidation of those claims by the payment of a million sterling. The Chamber has refused to grant the money, and the convention, therefore, cannot take effect.3 In England the whole Cabinet would in such circumstances have resigned; but in France, where ministers are but the clerks of the hereditary and irresponsible minister Louis-Philippe, who we may rely upon it will never resign, it is rather surprising to us that even the Foreign Minister, M. de Broglie, should have thought it incumbent on him to offer a resignation which we take it for granted he will promptly withdraw. That M. Sébastiani, ministre sans portefeuille, should give himself les airs of a resignation, was a still more superfluous piece of self-importance.4

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

[2 ]Bull. 123, No. 1998 (21 Nov., 1806); Bull. 172, No. 2912 (23 Nov., 1807); Bull. 169, No. 2890 (17 Dec., 1807); and Bull. 171, No. 2904 (11 Jan., 1808).

[3 ]The agreement reached on 4 July, 1831, in “Convention Regarding Claims etc. between France and the United States” (The Consolidated Treaty Series, ed. Clive Parry [Dobbs Ferry: Oceana Publications, 1969- ], Vol. LXXXII, pp. 97-103), presented to the Deputies on 13 Jan., was refused by them on 1 Apr. (Moniteur, 1834, pp. 93 and 770). (Reintroduced on 9 Apr., 1835, it passed the Deputies on 17 Apr. and the Peers on 12 June, and was enacted as Bull. 143, No. 317 [14 June, 1835].)

[4 ]See Moniteur, 1834, pp. 761 and 770. Broglie did not withdraw his resignation, staying out of the government until November. Sébastiani was appointed Ambassador to Naples and then, after a brief spell in the Chamber after being re-elected, became Ambassador to the Court of St. James.