French economists are becoming alarmed by the state of the
national finances. It is believed to be impossible to reduce expenditure, and there is already a deficit of three and a half millions sterling during the first nine months of the year. This is the more alarming because it has occurred in a year without a war, and because it synchronises with a heavy decline in trade and in the employment of mercantile shipping. It is said that no increase of indirect taxation is possible, as the receipts would not be increased, and the only adequate direct impost, a graduated Income-tax, raises the strongest opposition. Even the peasantry would not like it, they, like all other classes, having a horror of their incomes being known. It is doubtless one consequence of this alarm that the Budget Committee has recommended by twelve votes to six the suppression of the Ecclesiastical Budget; but even that desperate step would not " choke the deficit," and it will certainly not be taken. No Government in France would dare to set the Church free, as it must do if the clergy cease to be paid. Practically, the Ministry will go on borrowing and hoping for better times; but the increase of the Debt alarms financiers, who know that the bottom of the peasant's
the Army never ceases. representative Unionists.
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