We noticed last week that the French Budget of the
year was expected to reach 2160,000,000, an amount which begins to alarm French financiers. M. Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, a sound economist, calls attention to the gradual increase of expenditure, which, he says, averages £1,400,000 a year, though there is no increase of population. England, which is much richer, "probably 15 or 20 per cent.," expends, be says, £32,000,000 leas, while the National Debt of France has grown to the astounding sum of thirteen hundred and ten millions sterling, or nearly twice the Debt of Great Britain, which used to be thought so crashing. He protests, there- fore, against any further increase in the outlay upon the Navy, which ought to be a good defensive force. France cannot fight England by sea, though if the Trans-Sahara Railway were ',finished the Algerian army might strike a great blow at British power in Africa. Possibly, though the speculation is rash; but how is a blow to England to reduce French Estimates? The French economists seem not to see that if every expenditure which gratifies voters is at once to be sanctioned frugality is impossible, and, after all, parsimonia est magnum, veetigal. No Member of the French Chamber will resist a popular demand,—that is the secret of French extravagance, which goes on in spite of all scientific warnings.
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