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 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow 58.: FRENCH NEWS [2] EXAMINER, 14 NOV., 1830, P. 729 - The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXII - Newspaper Writings December 1822 - July 1831 Part I

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

58.: FRENCH NEWS [2] EXAMINER, 14 NOV., 1830, P. 729 - John Stuart Mill, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXII - Newspaper Writings December 1822 - July 1831 Part I [1822]

Edition used:

The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXII - Newspaper Writings December 1822 - July 1831 Part I, 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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58.

FRENCH NEWS [2]

EXAMINER, 14 NOV., 1830, P. 729

This article is headed “London, Nov. 13.” For the entry in Mill’s bibliography, see No. 55. One correction in the text is explained in n6.

the french chamber of deputies has postponed the choice of a President, in the place of M. Laffitte, until its number shall be completed by the arrival of the new members.1 The Government candidate is M. Girod de l’Ain, who has just resigned the office of Prefect of Police.2 It is believed that the doctrinaire party will set up M. Casimir Périer in opposition to M. Girod; but that estimable deputy, who by no means participates in the feelings and purposes of the doctrinaires, and who but two months ago resigned the Presidency on account of ill health, will not, it is believed, allow his name to be employed as an instrument in the hands of a party which has no root in the opinion of the French nation, to oppose the only ministry, in the formation of which, as it now appears, the King and the people could agree.

It is said that the new ministry will introduce an Election Law immediately after the Chamber shall have appointed its President. The provisions of the intended law are expected to be the following: 1st. The entire suppression of all conditions of eligibility—2d. The reduction of the qualification for an elector, from 300 to 200 francs of direct taxation—3d. The admission of the professions now entitled to serve on juries, to the elective franchise, free from any pecuniary condition—4th. If in any department this extension of the franchise shall not produce one elector for every 100 inhabitants, that proportion will be made up from among the persons most highly taxed below 200 francs.3

The elections have not been on the whole so popular as some, nor so aristocratic as others, expected. Among the new members are to be found the highly estimable names of Voyer d’Argenson, de Cormenin, Isambert, Barthe,4 and Odilon Barrot.

The Chamber, since its meeting, has been occupied in disposing of former orders of the day. M. Bavoux’s proposition for diminishing the taxes on newspapers, has not been adopted as a whole,5 but the stamp duty has been lowered from five to four centimes per sheet,6 and the amount of the security required from newspaper proprietors has been somewhat diminished.7

[1 ]On becoming President of the Council, Laffitte had vacated the Presidency of the Chamber of Deputies. Not until the end of November did by-elections bring back to full strength the Chamber, depleted by the resignations after Louis Philippe’s accession.

[2 ]Louis Gaspard Amédée Girod de l’Ain (1781-1847), an Orleanist politician, had been appointed Prefect in August 1830. (For Mill’s account of his behaviour, see EL, CW, Vol. XII, p. 56.)

[3 ]The election bill was not in fact presented until 30 Dec., and then in less democratic form; see Nos. 64 and 72.

[4 ]Marc René de Voyer d’Argenson (1771-1842), was a deputy almost continuously from the Hundred Days to his resignation in 1828. Elected again in 1830, he caused a stir by inserting, in accord with his republican leanings, the phrase “sauf les progrès de la raison publique” when he was sworn in. Vicomte Louis Marie Delahaye de Cormenin (1788-1868), a lawyer, was an opposition deputy and pamphleteer (as “Timon”). François André Isambert (1792-1857), a lawyer, a leading member of the French Society for the Abolition of Slavery, was a liberal deputy. Félix Barthe (1795-1863), a lawyer, had frequently provided legal counsel to liberals prosecuted by the government.

[5 ]François Nicolas Bavoux (1774-1848), professor of law and a liberal deputy; for his proposition of 17 Sept., see Moniteur, 1830, p. 1114.

[6 ]In the Examiner of 21 Nov., 1830, p. 740, a note referring to this item appeared: “In the summary of French news, ‘the stamp duty has been lowered from fifty-four centimes per sheet,’ read ‘from five to four centimes;’ but the statement itself is erroneous, as it was not the stamp duty, but the postage of newspapers which was reduced in that ratio.”

[7 ]Bull. 16, No. 80 (14 Dec., 1830), which resulted from this debate, lowered both the security required from proprietors (Art. 1) and the stamp duty (Art. 3) as well as the postage.