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

251.: FRENCH NEWS [97] EXAMINER, 11 MAY, 1834, PP. 297-8 - 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.


251.

FRENCH NEWS [97]

EXAMINER, 11 MAY, 1834, PP. 297-8

This item is headed “London, May 11, 1834.” It and No. 254 are described in Mill’s bibliography as “The summary of French news in the Examiner of 11th and 25 May 1834” (MacMinn, p. 40). In the Somerville College set of the Examiner, it is listed as “Article on France.”

the preliminary proceedings of the Chamber of Peers for the trial of the persons alleged to be implicated in the late insurrections at Lyons, Saint Etienne, and Paris, have not yet received publicity. In the meantime, however, the French government have resorted to another of their accustomed tricks for evading trial by jury. That mode of trial is limited by the French law to some of the higher class of crimes, and to political offences.1 A strike for wages, in France is an offence, but not, it seems, a political offence; therefore, the offence of instigating to a strike is not a political offence, and may consequently be tried by the tribunal of correctional police, without a jury. It happened that the Société des Droits de l’Homme a few months ago nominated a committee which placed itself in communication with various trades’ unions, then in the course of formation at Paris, for the express purpose of convincing them that strikes for wages are of no use, and that they ought to concentrate their efforts for the purpose of obtaining redress for their political grievances. This was instigating a strike; for instigating a strike, the members composing the committee have been tried without a jury, convicted and sentenced to be imprisoned for periods of two and three years.2

There has been a debate of several days in the Chamber of Deputies, on the estimates for Algiers.3 That possession, which was there shown to be more costly than advantageous to France herself, might yet have been so managed that its annexation to the French dominions might have been a benefit to civilization. But it has been utterly mismanaged, and the people so ill-treated, that we have ceased to wish that France should have the country, and we scarcely regret the symptoms which the Chamber has manifested of a desire to relinquish it.

[1 ]The limitation to the “higher class” of crimes is found in Loi concernant la police de sûreté, la justice criminelle, et l’établissement des jurés (29 Sept., 1791), Lois et actes du gouvernement, IV, 253 (Art. 5); the limitation to political offences, in Bull. 9, No. 68 (8 Oct., 1830).

[2 ]Moniteur, 1834, p. 1067. On 28 Apr., three members of the committee (Lebon, Mathé, and Lemonnier) received three years; one (Vignerte) received two years; one (Defraize) received six months; five (Ephraïm, Ferard, Allard, Sarge, and Labruyère) received two months; twelve others were dismissed.

[3 ]Between 28 Apr. and 3 May (ibid., pp. 1063-7, 1073-84, 1091-5, 1108-10, and 1117-25).