No details of the negotiations between the French and German
Governments about the evacuation of France have yet been made public, but it is understood that the principles of the new arrangement have been settled, and that M. Thiers will next week ask for the necessary powers. He is to pay £40,000,000 at once, taking half from the Bank and borrowing half from a syndicate of bankers, and tq find the remainder within fifteen months. To facilitate the transaction, he is trying to add 18,000,000 to the revenue, and insists once more that part of this sum shall be raised by a tax on raw materials. The Chamber prefers an income-tax, but he declares that in the present social condition of France an income-tax would be provocative of a revolution, and proposes an addition of 15 per cent. to the four indirect taxes, and 10 per cent, to the tax on salt. The Assembly, it is known, will vote these imposts, and it is believed will, in the end, surrender its objection to the tax upon raw materials, limiting the operation of that tax, however, to a single year.
