12 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



million of people. The citizens of no country have enjoyed 

 greater protection of life, liberty and property, than has the 

 French nation for nearly twenty years past. A man there need 

 only so conduct himself as not to injure his neighbor and let 

 politics alone, and for him the government was nearly perfect. 

 I know we arc accustomed to decry Napoleon, and some men do 

 so all the more now that he is deposed and powerless. But it is 

 not to be denied, in justice, that ho has given to agricultural 

 France the very best government she ever had, whatever may 

 have been the action of his government upon the people of Paris, 

 or whatever the theoretical objections to him as a usurper or 

 personal ruler. 



This is evident from two perfectly cogent series of facts : 

 First, that since 1851 the production of grain in France has 

 been raised from 912 million of bushels to 1,006 million in 

 1868 ; the production of wine from 739 million gallons in 1851 

 to 1,664 million in 1868 ; that the exports and imports of France 

 have been raised from 522 million in 1851 to 1,625 million in 

 1868 ; that the inland trade has been brought up from 248 

 million to 1,312 million ; and the value of the personal property 

 from 1,152 million to 3,733 million, and the commercial marine 

 from 5 million of tons to 12 million tons. And in Paris, too, 

 the valuation of the houses is raised, under Napoleon, from 511 

 million to 1,191 million. 



Can a government that works such results have been oppres- 

 sive to the people ? Have the mass of the French people been 

 satisfied with the government ? Of this there were two very 

 conclusive proofs. It is commonly said that the votes in the 

 several elections in favor of the Empire have been controlled by 

 the army. But in the rural districts, where the army was not 

 stationed, the vote in favor of the Empire has been almost unan- 

 imous, and the entire vote against it has been in the larger 

 towns and in the city of Paris where soldiers were stationed. 



But there is a still better and more conclusive answer. When 

 people are misgoverned and dissatisfied with their government, 

 they emigrate. Ireland has been pouring her population into 

 this country for many years, until, from a population of less than 

 six million, we have naturalized citizens of Irish birth, 1,611 

 thousand ; from England, which boasts of being the freest and 

 best governed country in Europe, with a population of 20 



