The Sun.
London, England, 1865-06-02 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

TIMES.—The labours of the Commission on the
French Budget have at length terminated. Nearly
five months ago M. Fould made his annual report
to the Emperor, and as soon as the Legislative Body
began its session the estimates founded upon the
report were referred to the commission for examina-
tion. From that time to this M. O'Quin and his
colleagues have been engaged upon their task ; the
tedious debates on the address occupied week after
week, but even they came to an end ; local acts and
decrees without number have been passed, the great
question of checks has, after much deliberation, been
settled, and still M. 0' Quin's labours were unfinished.
The prorogation of the Chamber has been postponed,.
and now in the first week of June the deputies find
their serious work has still to be done. It would
be ungenerous not to acknowledge the industry and
ability which M. O'Quin has displayed, but it may
be doubted whether the result has been worth the
delay. The Commission have done something be-
' sides expanding into 48 columns of the Moniteur
what was contained in the shorter report of M.
Fould, but it is not much, and what they have
done could have been done more speedily in the
Chamber itself. The facts of their report are
very nearly the same as those set forth by M. Fould;
the criticism upon the financial state of the Empire
shows, as might be expected, little independence or
originality, and the simple consequence of the refer-
ence to what we should call a select committee is
that the deputies will now fall upon the report
with diminished appetite and with jaded energies.
The Commission have adopted on the whole the
views of M. Fould, but there is a significant
although slight difference in the tone of their report,
and that of the Minister of Finance. Both are hopeful,
but the later in date is the less hopeful of the two.
The lapse of time has made it impossible to cherish
some of the anticipations which M. Fould put forth
in January, and M. O'Quin is not responsible for
the fulfilment of the Minister's prophecies. In his
report M. Fould said the expenditure of 1864 would
be balanced by the receipts ; though to secure this
result he was obliged to reckon as received the sugar
duties which were in arrear, and as realised the
Mexican Bonds, which were unsaleable except at a
heavy discount. We now find an acknowledged
deficiency of £1,000,000 in 1864, though the Mexi-
can Bonds, which have experienced a further decline
in the interval, are still reckoned at their first esti-
mate. There is also a supplemental credit of
£240,000 required by the Minister of War, so that
the acknowledged deficiency of £1,000,000 may be
converted into a balance of £2,840,000 of expendi-
ture over income, subject to reduction when the
Mexican Bonds are sold. The aspect of the cur-
rent year is slightly worse in May than it was in
January. According to M. Fould, it would be ne-
cessary to rectify the first Estimates of expenditure,
£84,200,000, by an addition of £3,280,000 ; M.
O'Quin puts the addition at £3,520,000. The
Commissioner is, however, consoled by the reflection
that the rectificatory budget of 1864 amounted to
£5,600,000, and that while the additional expendi-
ture on account of the Mexican expedition was in
that year £2,840,000, it is in 1865 no more than
£1,600,000. There is again a slight difference in the
Estimates which M. Fould and M. O'Quin have
formed of the revenue of the current year. The Mi-
nister had taken into account a progressive increase
in the receipts from the indirect taxes, which the
reporter thinks may not be borne out by the
result. By means of this expected increase, and
of an anticipated reduction in the actual expendi-
ture as compared with the Estimates, M. Fould
promised himself a surplus of £720,000 in 1865,
which he proposed to apply towards the extraor-
dinary expenditure of 1866. The la.nguage. which
the Commission use in reference to this anticipation.
is the strongest part of their Report. M. O'Quin
ion to.
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to speak of the
and his colleagues even venture
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th
of Finance most cautious in looking. forward. to the
future. The first is one to which attention has been
more than once directed o. n. this side of the Channel
as prejudicial to the
.stability of French finance. It
is the charge, occurring for the first time in the ac-
counts of the current year, due to payments made
to the Railway Companies of the Empire by way of
guarantee on the capital expended on the secondary
system of railways. Last year the charge for 1865
was taken at £040,000, but it is now confessed that
this is £140,000 less than the sum which will have to
be paid over to the companies. The Minister has
estimated the charge for 1866 at £1,240,000, but
the Commission point out that this is less than the
amount. which the Railway Companies themselves
believe will be required. It is not easy to calculate
the sum to which this payment of guaranteed inte-
rest may ultimately grow. The railway branches
most recently made are at once the most costly and