The Express.
London, England, 1868-07-03 00:00:00

OUR PARIS LETTER.

SPEECH OF M. TRIERS.
(nom OUR OWN coaßzepoirmorr.)
PARIS, TRTTBADAY Evmerso.

M. Thiers yesterday delivered the speech on the
budget which he has been carefully preparing for
many weeks. Although he occupied the whole day,
the speech is short compared with many of his
former lucubrations, and it is susceptible of
analysis within a reasonable compass. In the
outset be took for his motto a phrase which he
quoted as having fallen from the lips of an emi-
nent member of the house when the present com-
mittee on the budget was selected :

I do not expect the committee either in the forthcoming
or the next report to devise a remedy for our present
financial situation; it is not in their power to find imme-
diately assets which would not oppress the taxpayer, or
to suggest savings which would not prejudice the public
service. Nothing can do this but a long course of prudent
management. Bat what Ido ask from the budget com-
mittee is to tell us the truth.

M. Thiers complains that the committee, though
all " honourable men," though they have worked
very hard, and no doubt very conscientiously, have
not told the truth. Their mild criticisms are
couched in conventional language, which does not
differ essentially from that used by the govern-
ment itself. One member of the majority, how-
ever, M. Louvot, who he was proud to call his
friend, had broken with this conventional language
the other day. lie had very well demonstrated
how the debt went on continually increasing,
But M. Louvet had not sufficiently shown
that if the debt increased it was because
of the habit of the Chamber to vote expen-
diture without considering how it was to be
met, and more than all, because of a vicious policy
without criticising, which it was impossible to get
to the bottom of the chronic disease of the budget.
In the remarks he proposed to make he should
most carefully avoid exaggeration, which would
only injure his arguments; but he should also
avoid that extreme indulgence with which ho re-
proached the committee, which completely emas-
culated criticism. The three budgets now
specially to be considered were the one in
course of settlement, that of 1867, the cur-
rent one, that of 1868, and the one
which as yet consisted entirely in estimates, that
of 1869. According to the figures of the minister,
adopted with trivial pretences of reductions by the
committee, the situation was splendid. There was
an average surplus of about 100 millions, which
was laid out in reproductive works, and then the
floating debt, cut down when it became too large
by new loans, put everything straight. But the
truth which he endeavoured to enforce in 186,5, and
since, although the government would not listen
to him, was, that they were going on with budgets
of 2 milliards 300 millions of expenses, while their
receipts were but 2 milliards. He protested against
the system of half a dozen different budgets,
the denominations of which had only been in-
vented to conceal the troth from tho public. There
was in reality no difference between the ordinary
and extraordinary budget. The expenses called
extraordinary, merely with the view of leading the
public to suppose that they would not be wanted
next year, were essentially ordinary, and had been
wanted for the last thirty years. It was nonsense
to talk of extraordinary expenses necessitated by
the progress of science and the new arms wanted
by the army and navy. Science was always pro-
'greasing, and the army and navy would always want
new arms. It was ridiculous to pretend, as the
budget in effect did, that former generations were
ignorant, and that the present generation alone
has discovered the ultimatum of science. Ex-
penses for the improvement of arms would be