The Express.
London, England, 1853-07-22 00:00:00

FRANCE.

PARIS, THVISDAY Enxixo.
The Moniker of today contains a decree stating
that the prohibition imposed by the ordinance of Feb.
8, 1826, will provisionally cease, as ...pasts flour and
corn imported from the possessions of the United
Kingdom of Great Britain in Eumpe.
There is a diversity of opinion - ith regard to the
decree declaring that " the restr. Hong imposed on
the introduction of corn and flou by Article 3 of
the ordonnance of February 8, 1826, shall cease wo-
visionally to exist with respect to such articles when
imported from the precisions of th, 'Tnited Kingdom
of Great Britain in Europe." 'I. wording is
vague and inaccurate. I have hes it doubted
whether the " possessions " of Great Britain
in Europe include Great Britain 'WM, but
this is probably a refinement. It is pretty clear that
i England has no corn to spare, but it s scarcely
doubdul that corn purchased in other count, es may
be re-exported from British possessions into Frame,
under this decree. It is a strange sort of relief in
times of apprehended scarcity, to saddle the French
consumer with double freights, when the simple
rn-
medy would be to throw open the ports without re-
striction. Some gay the object is to avoid payment
of the duty upon the large purchases of Russian
corn lately made through the English agents by the
Minister at War, but if this were all one does not
easily see the advantage of relieving one department
of government from payments which would be re-
ceived by another. I understand a decree opening
the ports to grain from England was issued during
the dearth of 1847, but I have not had an opportu-
nity of seeing whether it was in the same terms
as the present one.
The tables of the average price of wheat which re-

EVENING, JULY • 22, 1853.

gulate the import and export duties are required by
law to be published on the Ist of every month in the
Bulletin des Lois. To-day, for the first time, they ap-
pear, several days beforehand, in the 31uniteur. The
object of this premature publication, as stated by that
journal, is to let commerce have the benefit of the,
modern rapidity of communication which enables the
returns to be made up eight or ten days before the
end of the month. In future, the Moniteur will
always publish the tables as soon as all the materials
have arrived, but the sliding scale of duties will con-
tinue to be regulated by the legal publications on the
Ist of each month. The immediate motive for this
step on the part of the government is probably the
desire to mitigate the uneasy feeling occasioned by
the late rise in bread. The averages, whether as
affecting the import duties, or the price of bread, come
into operation but slowly. The present price of
wheat for the month ending July 14 is lower than
it was in June, and had it been lower still,
the augmentation in the price of bread would
have been just the same, because that was
based upon the averages of last month. One
of the government journals hints that a fortnight
hence bread will be lower. The rise in corn during
the last three weeks has, however, been exceedingly
rapid, the general average having risen from 18f. 29c.
to 21f. 53e. Even in 1847, although the rise
was equally great, upon the whole it was not so
rapid and general. The absurdity of the sliding scale
is strikingly ahewn by the way it works in
France at the present moment. At the end of June
there was a sudden and considerable rise in corn.
The natural effect of this would have been instantly
to stimulate purchases in the nearest markets, which
would have at once checked the upward tendency.
hut the sliding scale was all the while regulated by
the comparatively low prices of the end of May and
beginning of June, and consequently operated as a
prohibition. It is not till the middle of August that
the effect of the high price of corn in June will be
felt in a diminution of the import duties. Such a
system evidently paralyses the tendency of commerce
to supply a void, and is curiously contrived to aggra-
vate a famine.

The Fury, steam-corvette of the English navy,
arrived at Marseilles on Monday from Malta, with
despatches from Constantinople addressed to the
Enjeish government.
The marriage between Prince Napoleon and
Mademoiselle Vesta, the eldest daughter of the Duke
de Rianzares and Queen Christina, is now considered
quite a settled thing. Visits are exchanged daily
between Malmaison and St. Cloud, and Queen Chris-
tina dines constantly en
,famille with their majesties.
The Princess Mathilde frequently drives to Malmai-
son on a morning. Narvaez is also there very often.
It will not be forgotten that his disgrace coincided
with the unsuccessful attempt of the Queen to obtain
The title of Infants of Spun for the children of her
second marriage.
At the Bourse, to-day, there was but a limited
amount of business transacted in government securi-
ties, and eventually a decline in prices took place,
though not to any considerable extent. The 'three
per Cent. for cash declined 16c., and for the account
6Z/c., and the Four-and-a-Half per Cents. for the ac-
count 10c.; whilst there was an advance of 16c. in the
Four-and-a-Half per Cents. for cash. In Bank of
France shares there was an improvement of 2Sf. The
final quotations were : For money : Three per
Cents., 78f. 60c. ; Four-and-a-Half per Cents.,
103 f. 15e. For the end of the month : Three per
Cents., 78f. 30e. ; Four-and-a-Half per Cents.,
102 f. 90c. Bank Stock, 2,730 f.
Northern, 880 f. ; Paris and Orleans, 1,135 f. 60c. ;
Paris and Strasbourg, 924 f. 75e. ; Paris and Lyons,
933 f. 60c.; Paris and Rouen, 1,120 f.; Lyons to
the Medit., 777 f.