The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-10-28 00:00:00

PROSPEROUS FRANCE!

The following extracts are from a leader in The Times
commenting upon the prosperous condition of France alter
her recent conflict with Germany :

The fianancial returns of France for the last nine
months are highly enceuraging. . . The direct taxes
have yielded nearly two millions sterling more than the
amount estimated; and the produce of the indirect
taxes exceeds that amount by more than four millions
sterling. . . . Both the direct and indirect taxes have
yielded more than they did daring the corresponding
period of last year, The increase in the one case is
more than £68,000 and in the other £1,724,000. But
it is not these figures which show the enormous capa-
city of France to bear taxation such as would be crush-
ing in any other country save our own. We must go
back to the time of the Empire to see what a weight has
recently been laid on the springs of industry without
sensibly embarrassing the nation. The Empire was
the most extravagant Government France had ever
known, and in the course of seventeen years it added
not far short of £90,000,000 to the national debt. In
the last year of its existence the Revenue was
£75,000,000. But the war with Germany and the
Commune cost £370,000,000, and hence successive
Governments have been obliged to make enormous
additions to the taxation. Last year the receipts
were £103,000,000. Thus, £28,000,000 has been
added to taxation in the course of six years. Such an in-
crease is, of course, a vast mitfortune. It must have
deepened the misery of the great towns, and made the
struggle of life harder for the crowd of people who live
one degree above a state of dependence. Yet there is
no outcry such as always attends wide-spread
misery, and such as France herself has felt when
she was not half so heavilyitaxed as she is to-day. It
was the wretchedness of her poor that hurried on the
Revolution and deepened its horrors. The same cause
of disorder added a lamentable chapter to the earlier
years of Louis Philippe's reign ; and the Ministers of
Napoleon 111. were often governed by the fear of what
would happen if the workiniz people of Paris should
feel the pressure of want. They would scarcely have
dared to impose such taxes as are now levied; yet the
nation now pays more than £100,000,000 a year with-
out complaint, and with little visible inconvenience.
A different tale might have to be told if the vines were
to fail for one or two years running, or if France were
to hazard another war; but, meanwhile, she shows
astonishing prosperity.
When we look to the several items of the increase we
see little reason for Misgiving as to the future
M. Garnbstta, who is now devoting his great powers
to the study of practical finance,—the most sobering of
all occupations to a Democratic leader,—will see from
the Budgets of Mr. Gladstone how magically Customs
imposts increase when cut down to the point which will
yield revenue without impeding commerce, and when
they are removed from all articles on which the mere
levying of them would restrict trade. It is not surprising
to hear that the duty on spirituous liquors has yielded
31 millions of francs over the estimate of 261,326,000.
A eitnilar increase may usually be found in our own
Budgets, and it can never be seen with comfort, for,
however satisfactory it may be to the Chancellor of
the Exchequer, it tells a melancholy tale of self-
indulgence and vice. The growing consumption of
spirituous liquors in France is one of several signs that
her people are losing their old habits of sobriety. The
gsreeraiton a s curseßep or a
drinking of absinthe in her great cities threatens to be-
c nn as
In the e
National
of gin in
Assembly has
o Reports, h
attributed many of the excesses committed by the
Communists to the fact that during their defence of
Paris great masses of the people were habitually intoxi-
cated. Most of the peasantry would still be a pattern
of sobriety to our own working people, but in parts
even of agricultural France there is less temperance
than there used to be lt is satisfactory to
turn from the revenue on spirituous liquors to the
rates on the registration of the sale of lauds and the
mortgages effeeted on these securities. The fact that
this tax is estin.ated to yield 333,069,000 francs, and
that it has already given four millions of francs more,
will suffice to show the basis of French prosperity.
The backbone of her industry is her peasantry, and
their all-consuming passion is to increase the amount
of their possessions inland. As there is a compulsory
division of property at the death of each owner, many
of the heirs find it more profitable to sell than to
cultivate the:small patches of land which faU to them,
and thus a large part of the national soil changes
owners every year. The peasantry have often to
borrow in order to pay for the pieces of land they buy,
and thus the mortgages on real estate have reached
an enormous sum. The State profits by each of these
transactions, and how vast must be the number of
them we may see from the fact that they will this year
add more that £13,000,000 to the Revenue.
The Germans do not hide their wonder at the pros-
perity of a country which paid them 2200,000,000
after the war, and yet is now far better cif than them-
selves. Political economists have often observed, how-
ever, the rapidity with which nations recover from
destructive wars. Among the causes of such a resto-
ration is the fact that disasters beget habits of
frugality. Before a war a nation often wastes a great
part of its capital in what the economists call unpro-
ductive expenditure; or, in plain terms, on sheer
luxury. Thus it keeps up a host of parasites without
adding to its real wealth. Every highly civilised society
is able to cut down its expenditure, without doing any
harm to its productive powers, and, after a season
of ruin, much of the wealth that would have been
wasted in a season of prosperity is directly applied to
the necessities of lifte—Seesiety is saddened by losses,
disputed 1)3, Mulattos ;al spurroci 0 llow eurtims