A discussion upon the distress in Paris has been going
on in the Chamber all the week, the nominal subject being a proposal -to advance £800,000 to aid the Working-men's Committees, and no vote had been reached on Thursday. M. Clemenceau attri- butes the distress to over-taxation, extravagant expenditure, and want of liberty, but only demands a Committee of
Inquiry. M. Ferry, on the other hand, attributes the fall of previous Republican Governments to their attempts to solve the problem of poverty, and maintains that the true policy is to allow combinations, to sanction Trades Unions, to guarantee and assist Benefit Societies, and to " aubaidise " insurance against accident. He would not, how- ever, make insurance peremptory, a saving remark, in which
M. Clernenceau agreed. M. Ferry in the Chamber proposes nothing, and simply resists the credit; but he has sanctioned the introduction of a Bill making inflammatory harangues, placards, and articles, offences, and restricting the right of meet- ing. He will also, it is said, order certain buildings, in order to relieve the masons, and perhaps support a proposal of the Municipality to raise a loan to build workmen's "cites" or Peabody buildings, in which the rooms will be let at low rates. The difficulty of this scheme is that workmen from the country are attracted by these tenements, and increase the crowd.
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