The French Chamber has repented of its vote for free-trade-
in matches. The Deputies were provoked by the extraordinary badness and dearness of the monopoly matches, and voted therefore for free manufacture, forgetting that they thereby gave up a revenue of £680,000 a year. This was strongly pressed on them by M. Bouvier on Saturday, and at last the Chamber, by a narrow majority of seven, threw out M. Peytral's Bill, and handed over the monopoly to the State, which binds itself in return to make the matches in a factory of its own. The matches will therefore be good, but they will also be dear, probably five times the English price—they are now seven times—and it will be excessively difficult to prevent smuggling. The Chamber has since given up a million sterling a year by allowing mortgages and debts to be deducted from the valuation of property liable to death-duties ; but in this instance it has recovered the loss by extending the duties to Algeria, by placing a surtax of 1 per cent. on successions to collaterals or strangers, and by doubling the 3 per cent. tax on lottery bonds,—the latter a curious idea, because the Government had almost pledged itself never to permit another lottery loan.
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