GLANCE AT THE GREAT POWERS. 



THERE is one word that by common consent is now generally ap- 

 plied to every thing political, and which powerfully attests the inde- 

 cision and uncertainty those marked attributes of our times: this 

 word is Question. In fact every thing, whether at home or abroad, 

 comes under this category. Internally, we have the East and West 

 India questions, the Currency question, the Corn-law question, &c.&c. 

 Externally, the Belgian, the Spanish and the Portuguese, the Greek 

 and the Turco- Egyptian questions, the solution of which baffles the 

 calculation of the most skilful observers of the varying aspect of the 

 political horizon. 



Amid this chaos of interests, this conflict of principles, a faint 

 glimmering of light breaks upon our darkened vision. The Minis- 

 terial journals now tell us that the Belgian question is on the eve of 

 its final adjustment; but this language has been held by the govern- 

 ment scribes " usque ad nauseam." Let us therefore examine through 

 what phases it is yet doomed to pass. First, then, as a preliminary 

 arrangement, we shall have a cessation of coercive measures on the 

 part of England and France ; the affair being thus placed upon the 

 identical bases it was before the embargo. After a little diplomatic 

 coquetry, the northern powers will again join the Conference, and a 

 new series of protocols will be commenced. Three years of negotia- 

 tion,, and two years of hostilities, will thus have brought things back 

 to nearly their point of departure. 



This Belgian question is another proof of a very evident truth, 

 that ever since the " untoward event " of Navarino, every thing that 

 has been done in Europe has been " de par et pour la Russie." Oc- 

 cupied by projects of internal reform and social re-organization, the 

 attention of both England and France has been of late exclusively 

 devoted to their internal concerns, a circumstance of which Russian 

 diplomacy has skilfully profited to develop its projects of political 

 aggrandizement. Thus, in France, we find the Chamber of Deputies 

 occupied with the examination of the " projet de loi" relative to the 

 municipal laws. This is an immense question, striking, as it does, 

 at the root of the system of centeralization and laxity of administra- 

 tion of the French government. It is a daring conception of the re- 

 publican party ; for should the measure proposed by Odillon Barot 

 and his party pass, it will exhibit the most extended application of 

 the federal system the world has yet beheld. That the central system 

 has been carried too far we admit; but such a sweeping re-organiza=> 

 tion as the one contemplated nothing, in fact, less than giving a 

 separate administration to each of the fifteen thousand communes into 

 which France is municipally divided would soon prove a death- 

 blow to the monarchy. In whatever shape the measure may ultimately 

 pass, it clearly indicates that the republican party are not so incon- 

 siderable as they have been represented. Louis Philippe wears an 

 uneasy crown. The external direction of the mouvement, compressed 



