M. Sadi Carnot, the French Finance Minister, on Tuesday submitted
his Budget to the Chamber. It is a disheartening one. Successive Ministries, with the approval of the Deputies, have for years thrown fresh expenses upon the Extraordinary Budgets, and have met them by loans from the Savings Banks and the chests of the Military Funds, so that, including Ex- chequer Bills, the Treasury now owes £60,000,000, much of it payable on demand. So immense a Floating Debt is a danger, and M. Sadi Carnot, therefore, proposes to raise a loan of £70,000,000 nominal, producing about a fourth less in cash. This loan raises the Debt of France to a thousand millions sterling, and the interest on the increase is to be secured by adding 25 per cent. to the Spirit-duty. The Finance Minister proposes only small reductions of expenditure ; and though he suppresses Extraordinary Budgets, he takes power to borrow four millions a year from the Savings Banks. The Budget will pass, as it avoids both great reductions and new direct taxes; but it is feared that the Floating Debt will grow again. As matters now are, France increases her National Debt some fifty millions every ten years, Ministers calculating that they are also running off the long lease of the railways.
