30 APRIL 1853, Page 14

BUDGETS, FRENCH AND ENGLISH.

THE eye of affection can discern beauty where the eye of indiffe- rence is not so clear-sighted. The French Budget, for example, which has, to our sight, features so ill-defined and so deformed that it presents the very type of ugliness and hypocrisy, can look pretty in the eye of the Constitutionnel. The journalist compares the Gladstone Budget with the Fould Budget ; and the points of comparison are worth attention especially for the English politi- cian who calculates the eventualities of the future by the events of the past. The Constitutionnel prefers the French Budget, be- cause the annual charge of the Public Debt in England absorbs more than half the total, in France little more than a quarter ; because a larger proportion of the French Budget is devoted to outlays on public works; and because direct taxation occupies a larger proportion of the French Budget, our Income-tax being copied from the French system. On the last point, economically, much might be said in favour of direct taxation ; only that in a political sense we English so dislike the inevitable inquisition ne- cessary to support some direct taxes, that we do not mean to con- tinue our Income-tax.

Touching the war, indeed, France has a right to laugh at us. During the grand contest France did realize an enormously larger amount of war than we did, and yet somehow got it on so much better terms that her debt on that account is not half what ours is. This_might be accounted for by the degree to which she used up national feelings, while we expended our treasure to bolster up feeble legitimacies and to force them on reluctant nations. France did her war a good deal more, upon the whole on the volun- tary principle ; we did it on the principle of subsidizing. Half of what we now pay on the Public Debt is really debt of Austria, of Prussia, of the dethroned family of France, and of other established thrones which have become either a failure or an opprobrium. They are toys which are expensive, and we have a long bill to pay. Now France had her own thrones included in the commissions of her own army ; and although they did not stand wear and tear so well, they did not cost half the money. OUTS have not stood in all cases. France may say to us, "While we are still paying some- thing towards the expenses of setting up Naples, you are paying towards the expenses of setting up the Bourbons in France : both are gone, but perhaps the Murata have a better chance than the Bourbons just now." When we come to the truly economical part of the Budgets, France has still perhaps some right to laugh at us, but with a strong probability that the laugh will ultimately be on the wrong side of her own face. There is a difficulty in explaining this sec- tion, because in point of fact the French Budget is a studied de- lusion in which the income of next year is set against the ex- penditure of last year, in such a way as to convince the present year that it can take all it wants of credit, and will save money by purchasing every bargain that tempts it. But some fallacies are evident on the face of the facts. France, for instance, is spend- ing great part of her money on public works to keep the people employed ; but what guarantee have the public that these are " reproductive " works ? There is much reason to doubt it. At present there is an enormous railway mania in France ; companies are set on foot every day, and the kingdom is mapped out in a prospective network. To facilitate projects of this kind, Louis Napoleon established his "Bank of Moveable Credit," which is just now moving to considerable effect. It owns a quarter of the property in one great railway scheme; • and "the fun of it is" that English shareholders hold half of that same capital. Besides these artificially planned railway projects, there are innumerable companies on foot, —companies for mining gold, tin, zinc, copper, and every metal, in Algeria, Corsica, Sardinia California, Australia, and France itself; companies for the fishing of cod, whale, and it may be added, shares, in the waters North and South, and in the winds ; companies for bathing and water-drinking accommoda- tion; companies, in short, to use up everything for which, the Government that holds in its hands the "moveable credit," the available revenue, the absolute power, can give a "concession." This official use of the Budget is said Li be good for France since it "promotes trade "; good for France, since it draws in English capital. The patronage is splendid. The chairman of one great railway company is M. de Moray, coadjutor of the Emperor be- fore the 2d of December ; amongst the patrons of a cod-fishing company there is no less commercial a name than that of "the Princess Mathilde " ; while the water-drinking and bathing com- pany has amongst its concessionaires an eminent banker. These great commercial enterprises thus enjoy all the favour of the pa- triotic court.

But courts are not always stable; a truth whereof we have an. instance in passing. His Majesty the Emperor had lately designed to unite France and North America by a Great Havre and West India Steam Navigation line; now abandoned, as any whim might be. But even if courts had not their caprices, they hare their vicissitudes. In England, it is true, we do not expend any consi- derable portion of our Budget in building streets to please the working classes with employment; with us, wages get on through the spontaneous activity of the building trade. We do not found banks of "moveable credit"; our credit consists in the substance and integrity of our merchants. Government does not deal in shares and concessions ; with us comments' enterprises are carried on by the energy of the community. So little, indeed, does the employment of our working classes or the turning of our capital depend upon the Crown, that if by any calamity Queen Victoria were taken from us tomorrow, there is not a single trading este- lishment that would know any difference between tomorrow and today. On the other hand, is there a single one of the concession- aires now basking in the sunshine of Louis Napoleon's favour who could put a value on his coupon if the death of Louis Napoleon were announced by the electric telegraph? The very boast of the Constitutionnel proves that the motive power of commerce in France is concentrated in a court, and must share the vicissitudes of an usurping revolutionary government; and with that broad statement of the plain fad, we may view the comparative splen- dours of the French Budget without envy. It is true that our own Budget has some reference to commerce; but what reference ? With the exception of the possibility that Government may grant assurance on lives as a kind of option or guarantee to the payer of Income-tax, there is not a single modi- fication in Mr. Gladstone's Budget that does not go to diminish the interference of Government in trading operations, and to leave trade freer for its own activity. It is trim that both countries are dealing with a state of prosperity; but the boast of the Constitu- tionnel makes us question how far the prosperity of France—of which some, unquestionably, is real—is overwhelmed by a fictitious prosperity, which hangs like a jewel suspended by the same thread with the sword of Damocles. In France, prosperity is from the Emperor ; in England, prosperity is from the energy of the whole country, improving the opportunities of the whole world. But our latest Budget has had for its principle to move the burden of taxation in such a way as to allow commerce to play more freely beneath it, and to leave it more to grow ; and by that means, al-though we do have to bear some of the bad debts of the old Grande Monarque, in whose place Louis Napoleon is now sitting—although we do not augment our exchequer by con- fiscating the property of dethroned families—it is undoubted that we are able to bear our burden of the past liability with a more settled contentment than our neighbours. Burdens are relative to the strength of him who bears ; and a commerce which grows on the broad basis of a great empire is naturally stronger than one which, inverted, rests its apex on the splendid but precarious foundation of an illegitimate throne.