M. Pelletan, as Reporter to the French Committee of the
Budget, has this week made two pessimist speeches. In the first he declared that the Navy was the most " petrified " department in the service, that it took five years to build an ironclad, the English maximum being three, and that the Port Admiral and hydraulic constructors at L'Orient illegally, and it is hinted, maliciously, destroyed a contractor's work, for which the State had to pay £24,000 in compensa- tion. M. Pelletan had even the courage to hint at extrava- gance or corruption in the Army, showing that the shares of the company which contracts for the manufacture of soldiers' beds bad risen from 128 fr. to 1,647 fr., a rise of more than 1,300 per cent. Upon Tuesday he attacked the colonial system, declaring that France spent £3,200,000 a year upon her colonies, and obtained from them nothing except an increase of exports, the profit on which might be £800,000. This is against the £80,000,000 which he said England exported to her colonies. There was, in fact, no French colonisation at all, but only military occupation ; and for himself he entirely disbelieved, while the Army cost £40,000,000 a year, and the Debt another £40,000,000, in the wisdom of spending £3,200,000 a year for the pleasure of ruling over dusky foreign populations. The speech was made to the Chamber, which approved, applauded, and went on as before, no party daring to face the Army, the Colonial party, or the Chauvinists.
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