The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-07-20 00:00:00

place, the English iltidget,does, not include the
service of the local 'or internal "administration
(administration inferieure); it is administered by
the counties, and it is the counties which
defray the expense. There are, under this
ead, 'forti-four millions of .francs (1:1,760,000),
which.- are not reckoned in. the English budget.
The departmental service, which costs in France
125 millions, does not figure in the English budget,
although it is paid by the populations. There is
also the service of the corporations (service com-
munal), which represents with us 13 millions, and
which the English budget does not, contain. Re- ,
ligious worship (les cultes) figures in the French
budget for 47 millions ; agriculture and commerce
for 68 millions ; lastly, the service of public works
for 31 millions. The equivalent to these different
allowances is wanting in the English budget ;
and if the whole of these omissions be added
together, the total amount will not be less than
340 millions (4213,600,000). If we pass to a com-
parison of the two budgets so far as equity and
reasoning are concerned, we shall find that there
is a manifest superiority in favour of France. He
would commence by referring to the armies of the
two countries. It would not become any one to
speak ill of the English army ; but one may
venture to say, without in any way undervaluing
it, that England could not bring together 80,000
men in ten days, whilst France, in the same
space, could collect 200,000, and would be able,
in two or three months, to place 350,000 in
position. Nevertheless, the English army costs
only 10 millions less than ours; and with 10
millions more only, added to our budget,
we have an army of thrice her strength.
The budget for religious worship in England
shows a disproportion altogether unreasonable
between the service rendered and the sum
expended. In France, for about forty millions of
souls, the expense of religious worship is forty-
seven millions. In England, for twelve millions
of Anglican Protestants, the expense is 125 mil-
lions of francs. The Chamber knows that, so far
as religious worship is concerned, the population
of England is divided into three categories. There
is first the Anglicans, who profess the religion of
the State, and who number, as he (M. Cassagnac)
has just remarked, twelve millions. The Anglican
worship isiilone sanctioned by the State, so far as
the organisation of its financial system is concerned.
Then there are six millions of Dissenters, who
enjoy no part of the 125 millions of which he
(the speaker) had before spoken. They, them-
selves, defray the expense of their own worship ;
and this is also the case with the 600,000 Catho-
lics. The honourable member had no intention
to go over the whole of the English Services ;
there are two only which he would desire to
remark upon, those of criminal police and crimi-
nal justice. These two services cost enormous
sums. The first comprises 20,000 persons, and
costs twenty-six millions. The Courts of Assize,
for their work each quarter, cost eighty-six
millions. The speaker said he would conclude
this comparison of the two budgets, by recalling
the fact that England has a debt of more than
twenty-one millions, . and that ours does not
amount to nine millions ; that is sufficient (he
said) to establish the superiority of the finances
of France. It was worthy of interest thus to note
the considerable difference which exists between
France and that country, which, after her, is best
administered."

M. Cassagnac next addressed himself to an-
swering the attacks that had been made on the
Government for not abolishing any of the restric-
tions upon the Press, and, in doing so, gave a his-
tory of the emancipation of the Press in England,
which he said it had required at least 100 years
to accomplish, while the present rvinie would be
satisfied with a quarter of that time for the same
purpose. He is reported to have concluded his
address as follows :—" History proves that there
has not been a single Government in France
which has been able to exist with the absolute
liberty of the Press. The liberty of the Press
was violated a hundred times during the interval
between the years 1719 and 1809, by all
parties, even by those governments which had
made the most resolute promise to respect it.
The government of 1848 itself, also, (and the
speaker honoured it for its sincerity)) had
imagined that it could let the Press do as it
liked. But the day arrived, when, pressed by the
force of circumstances, it was compelled to sup-
press two journals without any form of proce-
dure, and when it thought itself Obliged= to lay
hold of, and detain, a journalist in secret for nine
days. He (the speaker) recalled these facts with-
out making it a matter of reproach to the govern-
ment which was reduced to the necessity of
adopting such a course. But when political men
have such facts as these before them, in the
history of their own party, they ought to
exercise a little more reserve, and do a little
more justice to a government which has com-
mitted none of these excesses. It is too bad that
the liberty of the Press should be held up as a
standard by those who have themselves used it
as a litter.

I must also say a word respecting the dis-
cussion on the navy estimates for the
present year. The Viscount de Kervegilen,
who is the Sir Charles Napier Of . the
French House of Commons, fell foul of the
French Admiralty Board, and has shewn that
its management is fully more unsatisfactory and
unsuccessful than the English. He asserts that
every one of the newly constructed steam-
ships is faulty in one respect or ano-
ther ; that the largest of the lot, the famous
Bretagne, the cost of which amounted to
£240,000,—an enormous sum considering the
great difference in the wages paid-in the French
dockyards,—is so low in the Water, that she
could not put to sea -without first carefully
shutting her lower deck ports—to say nothing of
fighting or manoeuvring—that the fregates
blincMes, or steel plated frigates, are entire
failures ; that the gunboats, besides being badly
constructed, are extremely unsafe ; and, lastly,
that the double-decked transports for. con-
veying the troops to China, were quite as
costly as ships of the line, while they had
each only four guns for the purposes of
defence! And what had Napoleon lII2a naval
secretary to reply to these statements ? Nothing
—literally nothing, excepting that the attack
upon the management was wholly unexpected.
What will your English Administrative Reformers,
who are always contrasting the superiority of
foreign, as well as private, management over that
of their own Government, say to this.? So much,
also, for the alleged recent rapid advance of the
French navy to a superiority over the English.
It likewise gradually oozes out, I may add, as I am
on the subject of French finance, that owing to
the war in Italy and other causes, the "receipts
from the usual sources of revenue have under-
gone diminution in several items ; for example, in
the duties leviable on transactions in land, which
are at. present so high that all possible devices
are resorted to for evading them. In order
to make up for this decrease, the Government has,
among' other measures, resolved to do what Mr.
Gladstone, I see, has just been foroed'. to do—
viz., impose an additional duty on alcohol. The
rise is 15 francs per hectolitre (or 22 imperial
gallons), that is, about 7d. on the gallon of ,pure
spirit, and it is averred that it will be almost insen-
sible to the consumer, a result which I suspect has
not followed the Gladstonian additional impost of
Is lld per gallon, as 'respects the spirit drinker
of the British Isles. The receipts for tobacco
have, however, shown a greater increase than
ever. They now reach the large sum of 183
millions. There has also been a great increase in
the postage receipts, the amount received for last
year being 62 millions. Some economy has been
successfully introduced into several departments :
for example, the expense of the foreign consuls,
but that part of the Government's financial
scheme, which has for its object the increase of
the retiring allowances of the judges, by diminish-
ing the numbers of the personnel of the bench, has
been adjourned for further consideration, 'as
think I mentioned on a previous occasion, in the
midst of a strong opposition. Fetv reductions
have been effected in the war budget: it is stated
that the extra expense of the Chinese expedition
will be defrayed out of the unexhaasted' portion
of. the loan of 1859, but the rumour has
become current that in order to
,avoid engaging
inn fresh loan to meet the cost of the Syrian
expedition, there will be an issue of 200 millions
Exchequer Bills.
The Marquis de la Greca, the Envoy of the "King
of the T wo Sicilies," (this title has been rather osten-
tatiously paraded here of late,) had an audience
of the Emperor on Monday, and, according to
some accounts, another one, subsequently; but
have not yet been able to ascertain that the Sicilian
Envoy, the Prince de San Catoldo, who is accom-
panied by M.* Charlesde la Varenne, had been