6th Jan. Is the French Republic in extremis? Mr. W. H. Hurlbert, an American jour-rialist who commended himself to English readers not long since by the publication of two soundly Unionist volumes on Ireland under Coercion, has written a striking article in the Fortnightly Review, in which he answers this_question affirmatively. As a good Roman Catholic he is necessarily biassed by his horror of the Republic's campaign against the Church, and he seems to us to misjudge the French people from the outset. He tells us that:—"It was impossible for Frenchmen of experience and ability to believe in 1871 that the French people as a people cared one farthing about the Republic as a Republic. It was certain that great numbers of the French people, vividly recalling the follies and the crimes which had marked the brief career of each of the two previous Republican experiments, the experiment of 1793, and the experiment of 1848, profoundly distrusted the theoretical devotees of Republicanism and utterly disbelieved in the possibility of founding a stable and honest Republic in France." We take the truth to be that the " Freuchmen of experience and ability" were unanimous in thinking in 1871 that a Republic was. the only possible government for France. he various candidates for the throne were too much discredited, and the idea of equality is now so thoroughly ingrained in French society, that a Court is an anachronism. A Dictatorship is always possible, perhaps probable, and, if Mr. Hurlbert is right, imminent in France; but a stable monarchy seems impossible.
If we may disagree with this opening view of Mr. Hurlbert, we cannot deny the cogency of the figures which he prints to prove that the third Republic is in extremis. Louis Napoleon's pire was not a cheap government for the country by any means: his Court was an extravagant one in what may be called its legitimate expenditure, and his courtiers were largely adventurers who hung round the Emperor in order to enrich themselves at the public expense. "In 1869, the last year of peace under the second Empire, the ordinary budget of the receipts and expenses reached a total of 1,621,390,248 francs (say £65,000,000). Seven years afterwards, in 1876, it was necessary for France to raise an annual revenue of 2,570,505,518 francs (say £103,000, 000). This enormously increased amount, the result of the disasters of 1870-71, was raised by the administration of the Marshal Duke of Magenta, and the national accounts were settled with an excess of the revenue over the expenditure of no less than 98,000,000 francs (say £4,000,000)." Then came the theoretical Republicans underGambetta, who carried the country by the ery that Marshall Macmahon was plotting to [restore the monarchy. Since his time true Republican politicians of various shades have controlled the government, and piled extravagance on extravagance until the budget of 1890 shews Expenditure, ordinary.... 3,036,588,000 frs.
extraordinary. ' 498,678,633
Total....3,535,566,633 frs. jor say £141,000,000; so that the expenditure of the republic under President Carnot is £38,000,000 larger than it was under President Macmahon, while the estimated revenue for 1890 is less than £120,000,000, and there is a deficit of more than £20,000,000.
Mr. Hurlbert shews how this enormous increase in expenditure has come about. When the true Republicans came into power they not only made clean sweep in the vast civil service of France of every man who could be accused of being in any way a reactionary, but they went lavishly to work creating new berths for their innumerable friends. The following figures shew the cost of the civil service in the years stated The rate of increase has constantly accelerated; it averaged £160,000 a year between 1853 and 1870; £200,000 a year between 1870 and 1877; and £440,000 a year beween 1877 and 1888. Not only were the voters of France corrupted by the creation of these innumerable appointments; there has been also an unlimited expenditure on engineering works all over the country, by which deputies favourable to the government have been encouraged to conciliate their supporters. Rich country as France is, the enormous taxation per lead must lead to a disaster before long: the followi figures are taken from a speech delivered by M. Méline in 1885, since which time taxation has increased, instead of diminishing. The figures represent the taxation per head in the countries named 33 franes.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.