M. Rouvier has at last arranged, it is stated, for
his difficult Budget, which is to be presented to the Chamber to-day. He has decided on a loan of £28,000,000, and an addition to revenue of £4,000,000 a year, to be derived from an in- crease of one-third in the tax on spirits, an increase in the house-duty of nearly one-fourth, and the abolition of the exemption from excise duty hitherto enjoyed by certain high-class sugars made in France. As these taxes will be exceedingly unpopular, he sweetens the pill, for the peasantry only, by reducing the land-tax, now varying from 4 per cent. of the net profit up to 7)fr per cent., to a uniform 3.97 per cent. The total result will be, he thinks, to enable the Trea- sury to pay its way, and to reduce the Floating Debt to manage- able proportions. His loan is too small, for the Floating Debt will still amount to £30,000,000, and is always increasing; and the peasantry thought they had bargained at the elections against any increase of taxation. It would not be surprising if the Government fell, upon the new taxes.
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