EXPULSION OF BELGIAN WORKMEN IN FRANCE.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 315, 5 August 1848, Page 4

EXPULSION OF BELGIAN WORKMEN IN FRANCE.

While the Belgian democrats are congratulating the government, their fellow-country-men are being turned out of France. The Belgians, being better farm-servants than the French, are found in almost evary farm-house, where many people are employed, doing the drudgery and hard work without as well as within doors. They are most industrious and .tractable, yet their employers are told that they must ged rid of them, as no more foreigners are to be allowed to work in France.

The authorities do all they can to quell this inhospitable spirit, and in some places the military have protected the poor Belgians ; yet the idea that foreign labour has no right to interfere with native is too rooted to be easily reasoned down.

FLIGHT OF THE ENGLISH. A correspondent in Paris says :—": — " I have now ascertained the cause of the numerous departures of English from Paris within the last few days. One of them, a person of great influence, had said that he had seen a letter from the Minister of the Interior, advising the English to leave, as he could not answer for their safety. This statement created an immediate panic, but it was grounded in mistake. The fact is as follows : — A large body of French workmen waited upon the Minister to demand a decree for the expulsion of all foreign workmen. In vain did the Minister reason with them — all he could obtain was a promise to wait a few days. He then wrote to a friend, requesting him to advise his correspondents in England that it would be unsafe to scad over more workmen, and that even those who were already in France might find themselves in danger from the excitement of the French workmen. It was this letter which led to the error about English residents generally, who, with the exception of workmen, have never been in danger, but who, on the coutrary, were treated by all classes of the French with politeness and kindness. The reports which you have had to the contrary are all inventions. As to foreign workman, not only English, but many Germans and Belgians, have fled ; and you are aware that the government has published a decree, cautioning foreign workmen against coming to Paris, as they would be entitled to none of the relief afforded to natives. M. Ledru Rollin would not go farther than this ; and it has had the effect of tranquilhsing the French operatives. A better spirit, politically speaking, is beginning to pervade the mass. More than 20,000 workmen have sent up addresses to the government, entreating it not to postpone the elections. There is now reason to hope, that although men of all. classes will be sent to the National Assembly, the great majority will be men of intelligence. I hear that the renegade Republican party, under the late government, has been found to have been guilty of theft, and is to be tried for that offence. The journals do not mention the fact, but everybody is acquainted with it. It will do good, for it will throw disfavour upon the red-hot Republicans, who aim at anarchy."