London, Saturday, March 6...
The elections of the smaell colleges, or colleges of arron- dissement, in France,are terminated; and strange to say,only 16 opposition candidates have been returned out of the -number, 25,, composing nearly two-thirds of the whole Clhamnber. The remaining portion of the Deputies are elect- ed by the colleges of department or great colleges, and as these are composed of a fourth part of the electors who pay the highestdirect taxes, there is little chance that the 172 Tmembers whlich they return will contain so great a propor- tion of Liberals. Probably the whole of the opposition in the representative body in France will thus be limited to about 20 or 2 members. Neither MANUEL nor LA FAYETTE, with all their popularity-nor the ST. AULAtaSs and TEnRAIuX, With all their moderation-nor the LAFITTES an(l DrLEsS9RTS, with all their wealth, have been able to succed against the Inanceuvres of GoveTn- rment and the corrupt agency of the local administrations. It is not our business to interfere in the internal disputes of other nations, and therefore we shall abstain from pur- sidng the subject any further than merely to state it as a notsrious fact, that there has not been, on the present oc- casion, the shadow of a free election in France-that it. is a nockery and an insult to the understanding to say that. the people have hid any share in returning their representa- tives-that the Electoral Colleges, with their whole apparatus of Presidents, Scrutators, Secretaries, and baL- lot-boxes, havc been nothing but instruments of de- 3usion-and that the Minister might have appoint- ed the Deputies, as well as announced their nomi- nation, by a telegraphic deapatch. The French Cabinet may now exercise nearly as absolute a sway under the sanc- tion of a representative system, as the Ministers of BU'ONA- yARTE did without one, with this difference only-tl}at in the formner case, the general intelligence of the people -sup- plies 2 check on the exercise of power, whereas, in the lat- ter, there was no limit to the exercise of power but the feart of revolt. The French papers of Wednesday, which arrived last night, do not contain a single paragraph worth extracting. F.%ENcn FUNDS, Paris, March 3.-Five per Cents. opened at 104.; closed at 103, 70; Bank Stock, 1,785:; Neapolitan -5 per Cents. s64.; Rentes d'Espagne, 244. Royal Spanish Loan, 18t23, 60Q. Exchange on London, one month, 25. 40.; three mlonths, 2.5. 30.-Cours A athen- tiqia?. Private letters state, that after the publication of the Coars Authentique, tha Rentes rose to 101. 2A. LONVDON, SATURDAY, M.4RC!I 6, 1824