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 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow 262.: FRENCH NEWS [101] EXAMINER, 6 JULY, 1834, P. 425 - 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

262.: FRENCH NEWS [101] EXAMINER, 6 JULY, 1834, P. 425 - 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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262.

FRENCH NEWS [101]

EXAMINER, 6 JULY, 1834, P. 425

This item is headed “London, July 6, 1834.” For Mill’s bibliographic entry, see No. 257. In Mill’s copy of the Examiner in Somerville College, it is listed as “Article on France.”

the result of the french elections is that the strength of the Carlists in the Chamber has increased from three or four to nearly twenty, that of the liberal opposition has diminished from about 140 to about 100, and twenty or thirty votes have been gained by the government party. Every avowed Republican has been eliminated from the Chamber; though at Niort, M. Armand Carrel, who was put up without his own consent or knowledge, lost the election only by one vote.

The success of the Government in these elections can surprise no one. The electoral body is an oligarchy of fewer than 200,000 persons; and, as has been forcibly remarked, there are in France twice as many soldiers as electors, and for every elector about four paid places in the gift of the Government. That so narrow a governing body should support, with the utmost warmth, a government carried on for its own benefit, and the whole fruits of which are placed at its disposal, is no way surprising. But all other electoral bodies in France are animated by a very different spirit. In the very places where the Government candidates were returned to the Chamber by the most decisive majorities, the elections of municipal councils, and of the officers of the National Guard, have gone very generally in favour of avowed republicans. The 200,000 electors stand, therefore, in direct opposition to the real voice of the country; and, by natural consequence, the “extension of the suffrage” is now the universal watchword of all French reformers.