The Sun.
London, England, 1865-12-26 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

--e-
TIMES.-If the history of England proves nothing
else, it is an excellent guide to the only sure road
to financial prosperity. It establishes beyond all
controversy that the only machinery which can be
relied on for keeping a balance between revenue
and expenditure is a popular Assembly representing
the nation that provides the taxes. History some-
times makes us acquainted with that strange phe-
nomenon, an economical Prince, but her lesson on
that subject is plain and uniform. The economies
Of one reign are dissipated by the prodigality of
another. Henry VII. collects a vast treasure by
the most pinching economy and by the most cruel
extortion, but it is only for Henry VIII. to squander
it on the Field of the Cloth of Gold and the

pageantry of an ostentatious Court. Elizabeth
may accumulate treasure, but her hoards only go
to enrich the minions and feed the reckless waste

of James I. We have much to complain of our
finances up to 1832, but from that time we may
fairly congratulate ourselves on a steady and uni-
form improvement, which has brought us to a con-
dition in which, if there is still much to be desired,

there is also much to be thankful for. If the first

condition of success in finance be the absolute con-

trol of a popular Assembly, the second is undoubt-
edly, the most unreserved publicity. Everybody
may know at a glance how our affairs stand, and
form his opinion as to the sources of income and
the items of expenditure. Publicity is of no use
unless that which is published is thoroughly intel-
ligible. This object, also, has been attained, and
we therefore feel some confidence that, although
the management of our finances may be capable of
much improvement, the means of that improve-
ment are in our own hands. If we turn to the

finances of France, we cannot for a moment

doubt that its Government is at this moment

honestly anxious to place them on a sound and
satisfactory footing. The change in her foreign
policy, 'evidenced by her obvious desire to with-
draw as soon as possible from Mexico, by her gra-
dual abandonment of the Pontifical States, by her

pacific attitude on the Danish question,' and by
her friendly language to Belgium,. is clearly trace-
able to a wish to put an end to the era of deficits.
Finance has always been the worst enemy of French
Governments. It is hardly too much to say that the
old monarchy and aristocracy might yet have been
in existence had they been able to surmount what
appears to modern eyes a not very formidable
financial difficulty. The " Memoirs of Count Mol-
lien" represent the great campaigns of Napoleon as
partaking strongly of the nature of stock-jobbing
enterprise, and the one drawback to the prosperous
reign of his nephew has been the enormous increase
of debt which has attended it. We have in the

report of M. Fould to the Emperor very strong e'vi-
deuce of an honest wish to reduce the expenditure.
A reduction of about £1,200,000 sterling is an-
nounced. The Miniiter of War contributes£s6o,ooo ;

the Minister of Marine, £280,000 ; the Minister of
Agriculture,Commerce, and Public Works, 172,000 ;
the Minister of the Household and Fine Arts,
£15,000 ; the Minister of Finance, £240,000 ; and
the Customs' Department, £56,000. This is evi-
dence of good intentions on the part of the Govern-
ment. The misfortune is that under the present
constitution of France it is evidence of nothing more.
We have selected this part of M. Fould's statement,
not only because it is promising, but also because it
is perfectly intelligible ; but intelligible as it is, there
is no power in France, except the Emperor, that
can compel the Emperor to adhere to it. It is in
the nature of a contract which a man makes with
himself, a good resolution taken on his birth-
day, a determination to give up a bad habit,
or to renounce an agreeable but dangerous ac-
quaintance. It has every element of a contract
except the existence of two parties, and for want
of that there is nobody to enforce it. We fear
that, till the Emperor can be prevailed upon to
give some body over which he has no control a
veto on the' expenditure, the hopes of any durable
financial improvement are illusory. It is not by
the reports of Ministers, but by the resolutions
of popular Assemblies, that these things are to be
effected. What is needed is the assurance, not
only that the Government is in an economical
frame of mind now, but that it will continue so
during all the changes and chances of the coming
year. But there is another unfortunate circum-
stance which renders it impossible that such public
opinion as exists in France can be brought to bear
with any effect upon the finances,—that the state-
ments of the Finance Minister are, to a person of
ordinary intelligence and leisure, quite incompre-
hensible. The terminology of French Finance is
almost as abstruce and difficult as the terminology
of German metaphysics. M. Thiers's excellent
speech of last year, in which he enumerates and
defines the five kinds of Budgets which are simul-
taneously used by the Government of France, had
all the effect upon the ordinary European mind of
a new discovery. Words lose their common signifi-
cation in this refined system, and the homelp Eng-
lish term " Budget," which seems to imply a com-
parison of the very simplest kind between what a
man has in his pocket and what he is going to do
with it, vanishes into thin air when we come to speak
of extraordinary and corrective Budgets. In like
manner we have been in the habit of attaching to
the word " Sinking Fund" the notion of a fund set
apart exclusively for the reduction of debt, and are,
therefore, rather startled to be told that during the
current year the action of the Sinking Fund was
purely nominal, and, instead of strengthening the
public credit, only induced a false notion of the
financial condition. It is hoped that in 1867 it
will be no longer necessary to draw upon the Sink-
ing fund to meet the ordinary expenses, and
secondly, that the fund itself will be reorganised.
The reorganisation is to consist, as we are told in
a very misty manner, in charging the fund with
expenses which will gradually disappear, and sup-
porting it by revenues which will gradually increase.
When we ask what these revenues consist of, we are
referred to an estimated surplus of £720,000 for the
year 1867, and to other guarantees and resources
—whatever they may mean. It is with such hazy
generalities that France must be content. We may
be excused forasking, however, in what sense a fund
still chargeable with certain expenses other than the
reduction of the public debt can be called a Sinking
Fund at all ; next, what guarantee the public have
that the surplus which is to form a part of the new
Sinking Fund will, contrary to all experience --for
Imperial France has little knowledge of a surplus—
gradually increase ; what are the expenses to be
charged on it which will gradually diminish ; and
last, and most important of all, what security have
the taxpayers and the creditors of the State that
the new Sinking Fund will not, like the old, be ap-
plied for the purposes of the ordinary expenditure ?
It is just like the case of a person who pays a debt
with his own promissory note ; it is the same debt
over again, rather more formally acknowledged but
not a bit better secured than the old one. M. Fould
tells us that the budget of 1864 results in a deficit
of £2,000,000 sterling. It is hoped that 1865 may
end in a surplus. The Minister is led to believe
that in 1866 the revenue will exceed the charges,
and, growing in confidence as he advances further
into the future, he indulges the brightest hopes with
regard to the year 1867. In the meanwhile, the
floating debt amounts to the very respectable sum
of £31,000,000 sterling. Such are the facts, so far
as we have been able to glean them from M.Fould's
report, and we confess that, considering they are
taken from a statement which is intended to
strengthen the credit of the country and to present
her finances in the most favourable point of view,
we cannot regard them as satisfactory. We well
know the boundless resources of France—resources
which are only just beginning to develope them-
selvesin a manner worthy of their true grandeur
—and we feel that this and almost any other
burden might be borne by them if it were only
in the power of her financial Minister to furnish us
with any efficient guarantee for the future. Butl
while matters remain substantially on the same
footing as before, we hope to be excused if we read
the future rather by the light of the past than of the
brilliant anticipations of the Minister of Finance.
The finances of a nation are eminently the affairs
of a nation, and experience has taught us that in
no case must the powers delegated to the Govern-
ment be so narrowly limited and so carefully
watched. All that accuracy, all that ingenuity, all
that logic can do, will, we doubt not, be done to
give French Finance the best possible appearance ;
but all these things are of little account unless
coupled with the only real safeguard of the Exche-
quer—the right of refusal, a right which all history
tells us is even more valuable to the Government it
controls than to the people by whom it is exercised.
DAILY NEWS.—To many it will surely be a con-
siderable relief that the correspondence between the
British and the American Governments, with
respect to the damage inflicted by Confederate
cruisers, has at last been brought to a close. The
subject has now been completely exhausted, and
the only possible effect of prolonging the argument
would be "to introduce acrimony into the rela-
tions" between the two countries. It would serve
no useful-purpose-to state the pleadings on either
side. The misfortune is that no tribunal should
exist before which the pleadings could be laid, and
which should have authority to pronounce a final
decision. It is vain to hope that the Americans

will forego the claims which they have put for-
ward ; and, according to Lord Russell and his suc-
cessor, there is as little prospect that the English
Government will abandon the position, which it
has LOW assumed. But time works wonders.
Already our contemporary, the Times, " looks for-
ward to the time when a joint commission, per-
haps not limited to England and America, shall be
appointed to recast the whole chapter of inter-
national law which treats of neutral rights and
duties." Other journals are disposed to adopt the
same tone. And, indeed, there are unmistakeable
signs that the day must soon arrive when nations
will be compelled to submit their disputes to some
international tribunal before they will consider
themselves justified in enforcing this right by force
of arms. In the meantime it may be useful to state
once more the principles of international law which
Lord Russell and Lord Clarendon have laid down,
and the consequences that must follow from them.
Lord Clarendon distinctly asserts that " the British
Government have steadily and honestly discharged
all the duties incumbent on them as a neutral Power,
and have never deviated from the obligations im-
posed on them by international law." It is admitted,
not only by the American but also by the British
Minister, that the existing laws on the British
statute-book are utterly ineffectual to stop the de-
spatch of such ships as the Alabama, the Shenan-
doah,i and other cruisers of the like sort. But it s
further maintained by the British Minister, that
although the American statute law contains more
stringent provisions than our own, these provisions
are equally inefficient to stop such expeditions: It
is maintained, moreover, by the British Minister,
that although the inefficiency of these statutes has
been demonstrated by the experience of the last
four years, and although the result of the present
state of the law has been that American commereo
has been swept from the seas by the Alabama
and her consorts, the British Government was
under no obligation to improve her statute or
municipal law by rendering its provisions morn
stringent, and that by neglecting to do so this
country incurred no liability. It may be presumed
that in the opinion of the British Minister no pro-
positions less extensive than these would suffice to
cover the position of the British Government.
Nevertheless, they are startling propositions ; and
it is but too obvious that if this country were now
at war they would lead to startling consequences.
For what have we done? We have taught the
American and every foreign government that the
measure of a neutral's duty towards a belligerent is
the British Foreign Enlistment Act ; that having
this act on our statute book we are not called upon
as a neutral to do anything more ; that a statute
which has been found utterly powerless to prevent
the destruction of American commerce during the
late civil war is the only kind of statute which any
nation can be called upon to pass or to enforce ;
that all the additional securities which were sup-
posed to be contained in the American statute book
are useless, and that in case of war their provisions
might be repealed or left unenforced, without ex-
posing the American Government to the charge of
neglecting their duties as neutrals. If such are the
principles which are to be applied to the people of
this country when they are next engaged in war, it
is not difficult to anticipate the fate of the British
mercantile navy. Its destruction by cruisers ob-
tained from American ports must be speedy and
complete, and neither the American Government,
nor any other Government, will be considered re-
sponsible. 'ln short, no new laws need be passed,
and those already in existence are admitted to be
absolutely useless. Such is the conclusion which
follows from the justification of their conduct put
forward by the British Government. But let us
hope that there are some men in Parliament who
will discern the character of this argument. The
common sense of the nation cannot be so hood-
winked. 'War must be admitted to be always pos-
sible, and to leave questions of such gravity unsolfed
would be to expose our interests to too serious a
risk. If the argument were worth anything—if the
statutes of England and America are so utterly use-
less—it ought to prove that some change in the
laws of both countries was imperatively needed.
And it seems that Lord Russell, feeling this,
actually suggested to the American Government
the propriety of making some change. It is, how-
ever, idle to make any such suggestion before some
mode of settling the existing disputes upon this very
subject has been agreed to. Indeed, according to
Mr. Adams, this was the very suggestion which the
American Government pressed upon the attention
of the British Government at the commencement of
the civil war. It is the same suggestion which was
then rejected by the British Cabinet. " If," says
Mr. Adams, " the reasons for it are sound now, I
am at a loss to perceive why they did not avail dur-
ing a period when my country could have felt the
benefit of them." To adopt the suggestion now
would be to proceed upon the assumption that the
duties of neutrality had changed their character since
the conclusion of the war. This is obviously absurd.
If the municipal law enforcing these duties ought
to be made more stringent now, it ought to have
been made more stringent before the war dosed,
and the Government which declined to take this
course must be responsible for whatever damage has
resulted from its neglect. In other words, the ques-
tion, what are the duties of a neutral ? must pre-
cede the question, ought the statute enforciirg them
to be altered ? Means should therefore be taken to
ascertain whether during the American civil war
England performed her duty. This can only be
done by referring the matter in dispute to a com-
mission ; and now that Lord Russell and his suc-
cessor have refused to refer the matter, it can only
be done by the intervention of Parliament.