284 



tiaries agreed on the principle of international right, 

 and the Emperor's Government will soon be able to 

 make known the definitive result of the amicable in- 

 tervention of the powers. 



The relations between France and the United 

 States, according to the "Blue Book," have 

 continued to be cordial ; and the French Gov- 

 ernment had no hesitation in seconding the 

 efforts of the Washington Cabinet in reestab- 

 lishing peace between Spain and the republics 

 of the Pacific. 



As was mentioned last year, the American Gov- 

 ernment having again proposed its mediation be- 

 tween the belligerents, we thought, as well as Eng- 

 land, that the maintenance of our previous _ otters 

 might become an embarrassment for the Cabinet to 

 which we addressed ourselves first, and retard the 

 arrangement which all the neutral powers desired. 

 We lost no time in declaring that our propositions 

 should not be an obstacle to the success of the 

 American mediation, and desiring, above all. the re- 

 establishment of peace, which ^became still more 

 necessary after the calamities which occurred on the 

 coast of the Pacific, we are disposed to support the 

 measures, from whatever quarter they come, that 

 appear most likely to attain that favorable result. 



As a fresh proof of its friendly sentiments 

 toward the two republics in the South, the 

 French Government has accredited to them 

 diplomatic agents of a rank superior to those 

 who hitherto represented it. 



The "Blue Book," in conclusion, thus refers 

 to the remonstrances of France on behalf of 

 the native Christians of Japan : 



The Government of the Mikado must have been 

 convinced on a recent occasion that the French Gov- 

 ernment, which resolved to exact the strict execution 

 of treaties, will not pass the limit which these acts 

 mark out for it, and, in order to avoid exceeding its 

 rights, it has done violence to its sympathies. 

 Hardly had the struggle which he had entered upon 

 with the Tycoon been ended than the Mikado pro- 

 hibited to his subjects the exercise of the Christian 

 religion, and an edict imposed severe penalties on 

 the Japanese Christians wno refused to abjure their 

 faith. The treaties which guarantee to strangers the 

 full liberty of professing their faith, wherever they 

 are authorized to reside, containing no stipulation of 

 a nature to justify the active intervention of the 

 Christian powers in favor of Japanese subjects, we 

 limited ourselves, as well as the Cabinets of Wash- 

 ington and London, to tendering counsels of modera- 

 tion to the Government of the Mikado, and repre- 

 senting to him that his reverting to the errors of the 

 past would affect the consideration he was held in by 

 other nations. We cannot affirm that a power, which, 

 perhaps, owes a part of its prestige to the influence 

 of theocratic ideas, will at once consent to recon- 

 sider an act so grave ; but we may be permitted to 

 hope that the measures of repression, already less 

 cruel than those enforced in former times, will be 

 more and more mitigated in practice until such time 

 as they fall into complete desuetude. 



FRANCE, THE PRESS OF, IN 1868. The year 

 1868 is of special importance in the history of 

 France as regards the newspaper press of the 

 country. For sixteen years past the Draconic 

 Press Law of February 17, 1852, with its sys- 

 tem of communiques, warnings, previous au- 

 thorization, stamp-tax, caution-money, and all 

 those illiberal features which rendered it in 

 every respect more oppressive than the press 

 laws of any other European country, with the 



FRANCE, THE PRESS OF, IN 1868. 



exception of Russia and the two Mecklenburgs, 

 had weighed down journalism in France and 

 prevented its healthy growth and develop- 

 ment. In consequence of the discretionary 

 powers given to the Minister of the Interior 

 and to the prefects of the departments, with 

 whom it was left optional whether or not they 

 would allow new papers to be established, sixty 

 departments, at the beginning of the year 1868, 

 had no other political journals than small offi- 

 cial or semi-official sheets, all attempts to start 

 independent or opposition papers having been 

 thwarted by the minister or the prefects. 

 Even in the largest provincial cities of the em- 

 pire, such as Lyons, Marseilles, Bordeaux, Lille, 

 Toulouse, Nantes, and Rouen, the condition of 

 the newspaper press was so deplorable, that 

 these seven cities, with an aggregate popula- 

 tion of upward of 1,300,000 inhabitants, had 

 on the 1st of January, 1868, only eleven daily 

 papers, with a total circulation of less than 

 130,000 copies. Only in Paris, where the im- 

 perial Government could not entirely disregard 

 public opinion, the rigorous provisions of the 

 Press Law of February 17, 1852, were not en- 

 forced as inexorably as in the provincial cities 

 and towns ; still, the tone of even the organs 

 of the most advanced wing of the opposition 

 was singularly mild and cautious, and, although 

 the old saying that "Paris is France" is most 

 decidedly true so far as its newspaper press is 

 concerned, nearly all the Paris dailies having 

 as many subscribers in the departments as in 

 Paris, the aggregate circulation of all the daily 

 political journals published in Paris, on the 1st 

 of January, 1868, fell short of 300,000 copies ; 

 and the profits of even the most successful of 

 these dailies, such as the Siecle and Liberte, 

 with respectively forty and thirty thousand 

 subscribers, and with a heavy advertising pa- 

 tronage, remained comparatively insignificant. 



In the celebrated letter which the Emperor 

 Napoleon had addressed on the 19th of Janu- 

 ary, 1867, to M. Rouher, the Minister of State, 

 he had promised that " a law should be pro- 

 posed for assigning the jurisdiction over of- 

 fences against the press laws exclusively to the 

 correctional tribunals, and thus suppress the 

 discretionary power of the Government." The 

 semi-official organs of the imperial Government 

 had added to this letter comments evidently 

 proceeding from official sources, and promising 

 in the most emphatic and unequivocal manner 

 that the imperial Government, besides the re- 

 forms granted to the political journals of the 

 country in the Emperor's letter, would at the 

 earliest moment submit to the Senate and 

 Corps Legislatif an act modifying many of the 

 most burdensome paragraphs of the Press Law 

 of February 17, 1852, and thus place France, in 

 this respect, too, on a footing of equality with 

 the most liberal states on the European Con- 

 tinent. 



For a' long time, notwithstanding the most 

 urgent appeals of the organs of the opposition, 

 these promises remained unfulfilled, and ap- 



