most lucrative; now it seems to be ready for any enterpriseeven the Suez Canal. The gigantic loan-societies, the Crédit Fonçier, and the Crédit Mobilier, are answerable for much of this. On the whole, we believe these are well managed; but few Englishmen of business can look at either their proceedings or their constitution without a shudder.

The present railway system of France, which has done such wonders both to develop the resources and to utilise the capital of the country, is mainly due to the Imperial Government, partly to its management, partly to its pecuniary aid. The old system had been complicated and clumsy in the extreme; the State paid for part of the work, the departments or communes for part, and the company for the residue.

"Invested in 1852 with full powers of opening extraordinary credits for the construction of the large railway network decreed in 1842, the Imperial Government gradually reversed the whole system of its predecessors. The practice of constructing and working railways at the expense of the Government was from the outset condemned, and measures taken at once to form companies to take off the hands of Government those lines which were its property. Although the idea of an ultimate reversion of all the principal railways to Government was not given up in theory, the uniform grant of a ninety-nine years' lease to the companies, instead of, as before, half that period, or even less, was virtually giving them a right of proprietorship. All companies were reconstructed on this basis. Liberal terms were given both to the companies which took the Government lines and to the old ones, which were still under large obligations for outlays made by Government, but at the same time the condition was imposed that they should greatly extend their respective lines.... Government subventions were not altogether stopped, but they were every year more reduced. From 30 to 40 per cent of the outlay, their former proportion, they gradually sank to 20 per cent and less, until in 1857, when a large construction of branch railways (4000 miles) was decreed, subventions were in most cases dropped, and a guarantee of 4.65 per cent, as interest and sinking fund on a certain maximum of expense for fifty years, was adopted as the rule. If the revenues of the old lines exceeded a certain sum per mile, the surplus was to be applied as part of the guarantee stipulated by the Government for the new branch lines; if these latter should at any time yield more than the guarantee, the surplus was to be used to repay the sums expended by Government as guarantee; and after 1872 all revenues of old and new lines beyond a fixed sum were to be shared with Government. The system of direct subventions was only kept up in exceptional cases, where the

Government was specially interested, from military or other motives; but taking all this together, it is calculated that the proportion of expenses borne by the Government in these branch lines amounts to no more than from 800l. to 1000l. per kilomètre, or about 7 per cent of the outlay, against 4000l. per kilomètre, or 30 per cent, which had been the average on the old lines. By these means a complete revolution has within the last ten years been effected in the French railway system. They have changed their character as Government concerns, and have become private enterprises. The effect of this emancipation is plainly visible in the progress which railways have made since that time. From 1270 miles in 1851, they had risen at the beginning of this year to above 5000 miles; and this result has been achieved at about one-half the cost entailed on the Government by the former system."

By similar means, by judicious stimulus and occasional aid, the other means of communication in France have been greatly extended and improved. To say nothing of canals, it is calculated that 33 millions of francs are now annually spent on Imperial highways, 48 millions on departmental, and 100 millions on communal or vicinal roads. A good deal of this is directly traceable to a sort of gentle pressure exercised by the authorities, assisted by careful loans. The commercial treaty with England was another, and a courageous step, in the direction of stimulating and setting free private enterprise, on the consequences of which, however, it is too early to speak. On the whole, the success of Louis Napoleon in filling the whole mind of middle-class France with the passion for money-making has been astonishing. The drawback has been, that the gambling spirit has been fostered in nearly the same ratio as the spirit of legitimate enterprise and industry, and honesty has not been taught either by precept or example. The feverish excitement of the Bourse is a sad set-off against the activity of the shipping ports and the railway office. We, however, who remember Hudson, must not be too severe upon the age and nation which has to be ashamed of Mirès-and his judges.

Now if, in all the matters on which we have touched, we may be of opinion that the hand of the Government has been too visible and too active,-which undoubtedly, according to English notions, has been the case,-we must bear in mind that in France the people have always been in the habit of looking to the Government for every thing; that they have little initiative; that though a most organisable, they are not a self-organising race; and if, as the writer we are reviewing is convinced, the persistent aim of Louis Napoleon has been to arouse and supplement, and not to supersede, individual enterprise, we must

admit that in these matters he contrasts most favourably with all his predecessors. Certain it is, that in every thing relating to commercial policy his views are incomparably sounder, wider, more liberal, and more courageous, not only than those prevalent among Frenchmen generally, but than those entertained by the cleverest statesmen of any previous régime. On all such subjects he is as far ahead of Guizot and Thiers as Pitt was ahead of Fox, or as Sir Robert Peel, at the close of his career, was ahead of Lord Derby and Lord Melbourne.

At home, then, the Emperor, in the course of ten years, and in the process and perhaps for the purpose of consolidating his own power, has insured the possessions, utilised the savings, and improved the condition of the peasant. He has increased the earnings, pacified the minds, directed the energies, and absorbed the surplus numbers of the ouvrier class. He has aroused, concentrated, and turned to profit the enterprise and love of money of the mercantile and industrial bourgeoisie. He has doubled the foreign commerce of the country, and quadrupled its railways. He has brought both army and navy to a pitch of perfection, both in equipment and extent, never before reached-not even by his uncle. And he has done all this at a money cost which is enormous no doubt, but which can scarcely be deemed excessive, if we regard either the results achieved or the capability of the country to afford it. It is probable that he has not spent, one year with another, more than one-third of the annual accumulations of the people. The savings of France-that is, the aggregate surplus of every body's income over every body's expenditure, after the ordinary taxes have been paid-are estimated by some economists as high as 50,000,000l. The Emperor has not borrowed and spent annually more than 15,000,000l.; and not all even of this sum has been unproductive. The moral and intellectual cost of the Empire to France is another question altogether, on which we shall have a word or two to say presently. But first let us cast a very brief glance at what the Emperor has done abroad.

Next to pleasure and the means of it,-sometimes even before either,the love of glory has been the ruling passion of Frenchmen. Partly from vanity, partly from arrogance, partly from desire for power, partly from a thirst for excitement,

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Our author maintains also that the Emperor has not only produced far greater effects in this direction than his forerunners, but has produced them at less cost. Taking both ordinary and extraordinary expenses together, a sum of 52,000,000l. represents the leaven' used up by Imperialism in ten years for stimulating national enterprise and promoting national prosperity, against a sum of 68,000,000l. laid out in the ten years previous."

partly from a consciousness of peculiar capacity, they love to distinguish themselves in war, and to dictate to the rest of the world. France so France so long gave the law to Europe, that she has almost learned to believe that it is her special function and her inalienable right. When Louis Napoleon came to the throne, he was not only fully alive to the necessity of gratifying this national sentiment, but he actually shared it in a very large measure. He sympathised with the nation in its restlessness, in its fancy for distinction, in its mania for meddling and for grandeur. He might, had he yielded without moderation or sagacity to his own and his people's passions, have set all Europe in a blaze, and lost both his country and himself. He might have made a dash at the "natural boundaries" of France, and pandered to the national jealousy and grudge towards England. The nation would have applauded and backed him in both proceedings. He did neither. He was restless certainly, and kept all around him in hot water; but he has assiduously cultivated the friendship and good-will of England, has made some sacrifices, has borne some vexations, and has risked some popularity by doing so. He has not been generous where the distribution of fame and glory was concerned: perhaps, as a French ruler, he could not afford to run so counter to the national weakness as to be so. He has not always been truthful in his dealings with us, especially in the matter of Savoy and Switzerland; but it cannot be said that he has exceeded the usual insincerity of diplomatic intercourse; and compared with the French statesmen who preceded him, all our ministers, we believe, admit that he may even be termed fair and honest. He has been a principal in two desperate and bloody wars; but assuredly it is not for England to blame him in either case, for in the Crimean war he was our ready and energetic ally, and in the Italian war he aided and made victorious a cause which we had at heart more than any other. He joined us in our Chinese expedition, and dragged us into his Mexican one; and though our Government has been compelled to disapprove his proceedings in the latter case, and to withdraw from all participation in them, yet many sagacious Englishmen are compelled to admit that he took a wider and sounder view than Lord Russell of what was necessary; and hold that good both to Mexico and to ourselves, as well as to America, may be the result. The issue of his two great wars has been both glorious to France and beneficial to Europe. We say nothing as to his motives in undertaking either, nothing as to certain proceedings in the course of them, nothing as to how far his secret intentions may have been overruled for good;— but it cannot be denied that, since his uncle's overthrow, no two

political events have been so signally serviceable to the cause of freedom and of progress. The check and humiliation of Russia relieved Germany from its most overshadowing terror, and deprived German despots of their grand refuge and resource; it rescued Europe from a weight which was always thrown into the wrong—that is, the antipopular scale, and whose precise value could not be estimated, and was therefore proportionately the more formidable. The war with Austria in 1859-whatever we may think of the lawlessness of its origin, or the selfish and abortive end which so stained and dwarfed its grandeur-did what no previous king or conqueror had ever done, it made Italy a kingdom; it led to the creation of a new power and monarchy in Europe; for though Louis Napoleon did not do all that has been done, and has not done all that he should do, yet most unquestionably nothing could have been done without him. He, even more than either Cavour or Garibaldi, may claim to be the founder of Italian unity and independence ;-for if they were the causæ causantes, he was the causa sine quá non. We need not give him any credit for popular sympathies or generous aspirations; we need not give him as much credit as many do for width or depth of political vision: still the fact remains, that, in the two great wars which have signalised his reign, in giving glory to France he has also done good to the world. He has disturbed the peace of Europe, and added enormously to its taxation; but he has given indefinite possibilities to one people; and a country, a future, the realisation of a noble dream, and freedom from a crushing tyranny, to another. It is given to few rulers thus to win fame and gratitude by a single stroke-to do good while doing wrong-to scatter priceless blessings to uncounted millions, while meditating and pursuing only their own advancement, but meditating and pursuing this with sagacity and insight.

But the power of doing all these things of performing all these magnificent achievements abroad, and eliciting all these lucrative results at home-has been gained at the cost of the political paralysis of the nation; or perhaps it would be more correct to say, by pandering to and taking advantage of that weary longing after political lethargy, which was the consequence of the fierce struggles and the unsatisfactory results of preceding years. More than this it would be scarcely fair to Îay to the charge of Louis Napoleon. Passing over the perjury and violence through which he bounded to the throne-for which morality can grant no absolution-it is not quite true to say that he crushed the political liberties of the nation. The number of those who were willing, or thought it worth while, to strike a blow in their defence was so infinitely small; the num