The Evening Star MONDAY, MAY 8, 1871.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2565, 8 May 1871, Page 2

The Evening Star MONDAY, MAY 8, 1871.

The New Postal Service is inaugurated, and within a few hours of her appointed time the Nevada reached Auckland. That we did not receive the news earlier must be laid to the account of accident to the telegrapn wires. This happy commencement of the New Service and the successful floating of the loan for reproductive purposes by Mr Yooel, are the chief items of Colonial interest in the news. Notwithstanding the factious nonsense that has been penned for and printed in the columns of our morning contemporary, these two results have been accomplished. We wonder if the Daily Times will have the grace now to acknowledge that he has labored in vain in his opposition, and that all the misrepresentations of motives and actions which that journal has so industriously circulated, both in the Colony and abroad, have only existed in the disordered imagination of its writers. The Nevada that it was said would not arrive, has arrived j and the loan which it was prophesied would not be got, has been obtained. The scheme, which it was averred would be hooted on the London Stock Exchange, has not been rejected ; and Mr Yodel, who, it was predicted would not succeed, has succeeded. Although higher prices are not quoted for flax and wool, there is every indication that the prospect cf European peace being maintained will favorably affect the markets, and that could order be restored to France, a season of prosperity might be anticipated such as has been unknown for years. Continental news is still centred on that distracted country. Relieved from Prussian hostility, the true but hidden difficulty is revealed. Instead of uniting to heal their differences, the old sore is re-opened—the masses want a republic, the ruling men want monarchy: the result must be, in one shape or other, a military despotism. It ever has been so, and must be : from the nature of things, the weaker party where twoare so nearly balanced will ultimately be kept down by force. France’s weakness has been made plain. Notwithstanding the invasion by a foreign enemy, the people were not sufficiently proud of the Empire to become willing sacrifices for the Emperor. Perhaps Bishop Moran, in view of this terrible civil strife, may have some misgivings as to the effect of the teaching he so much boasted about in his last lecture. It has not made those who were the subjects of it wiser or better than other people. It has not made them happier or more peaceably inclined. But there are others who may learn a few salutary truths from the misery and dissension passing there. There are men who sneer at the neutrality of England, and imagine they are uttering something profound when they talk of “ peace at any price,” as if peace were beneath a great nation. \Ve ask them to reflect on what is passing now in France, and to say whether hundreds of thousands of men should have been killed in battle, and thousands of millions wasted—for such must have been the case—merely to enable the people of France to wage a civil war that must Lave broken out sooner or later. Common suffering has not taught them common feelings nor common interest. Barely united in their defence against an outside enemy, they now turn their arms against each other. The Conservative Press of England were loud in their condemnation of the British Government for leaving Paris to be bombarded > but the French themselves are less delicate about the matter, The Prussians did Jittlp damage

compared with what they are doing to their capital. M. Thiers has a, difficult task remitted to him, and able as he undoubtedly is, he will find it hard to mark out a form of government that will command obedience to laws. Such a complete and sudden breaking up of existing institutions has not been witnessed for eighty years. Louis Napoleon’s grand mistake has been an attempt to go back to institutions abolished at the first revolution. In that respect his state policy was retrogressive. He tried to form a court and aristocracy in a country in which the material did not exist for sustaining them. So long as he had the army to depend upon, the slumbering dissentients were overawed and kept under. Had he succeeded in subduing the Prussians, his son might have followed him as ruler of France. There can be little doubt that this formed part of his scheme. Hut he might as easily have succeeded in establishing a despotism in Australasia as in maintaining one in France. It is unsuited to the genius of this age of the world. In every other country the masses are seeking liberty, and where they have been accustomed to it they prosper Had he had faith in right principles he might have been on the throne of France now • but he has learnt experimentally that the sword is a bad substitute for moral freedom, and that he rules best who founds his empire on justice and peace. The first Napoleon is said while in St. Helena to have drawn a comparison between the two systems which is worth remembering. “ I know men,” he said to Count Montholon, “and I tell you Jesus “ is not a man ! The religion of Christ “is a mystery which subsists by its “ own force, and proceeds from a mind “ which is not a human mind. We “ find in it a marked individuality, “ which originated a train of words “ and actions unknown before. J esus “ is not a philosopher, for His proofs “ are miracles, and from the first, “ His disciples adored Him, Alexan- “ der, Caesar, Charlemagne, and myself founded Empires, but on what “ foundation did we rest the creatures “of our genius 1 Upon force. But “ Jesus Christ founded an Empire “ upon Love ; and at this hour millions “of men would die for him. I die “ before in}' time, and my body will be “ given back to the earth to become “ food for worms.” Although immeasurably short of this standard, perhaps the nearest approach to it, as applied to politics that the world has seen, is the present course pursued by Great Britain, and the result is that the sun never sets on her dominions, and her offshoots are among the prosperous of the earth. The third Napoleon did not apprehend the truth or despised it, and his Empire has become a thing of the past. It is the result of ■ a moral law which is as invariable in its operation as physical I iws.