If the statements made this week as to the pressure
placed by the French peasantry upon their Deputies are true, France needs a great financier even more than Russia. The Govern- ment has to raise an immense loan in order to fund the Floating Debt, estimated at sixty millions sterling, to reduce expenditure, to lighten the heavy taxes on real property, to avoid an income-tax, to abstain from increasing the kuor duties, and to introduce a strong system of Protection. It is nearly certain that expenditure will not be reduced, that new taxes must be found, and that, in despair of other devices, a re- modelled Cabinet will try the experiment of a high tariff. They must also, we imagine, risk the indignation of the liquor trades, for they want money now, and cannot get it from the tariff till the Commercial Treaties expire. France is so rich that new resources will probably be found ; but then her wealth is in the hands of electors with two fixed ideas in their heads, that the State ought to spend money in their special districts, and that it ought to lighten the imposts on their special industries. Even Mr. Gladstone might be perplexed under such circumstances, and the French Exchequer, like every other French department of State, is in the hands of men who are able in their way, and very desirous to succeed, but ham- pered by intellectual limitations. They are average men asked to show the capacities of creative statesmen.
Previous page
