The Sun.
London, England, 1841-04-20 00:00:00

EXPENDITURE OF FRANCE.

Without reverting to the details of the extraor-
nary expenditure of France in the years 1840,
841, and 1842, which we laid before our readers
on a recent occasion, we may remind them that it
appears from the official reports on the supplemen-
tary creditsohat the grand total of extraordinary
expenditure for the military and naval establish.
ments, for the fortifications of Paris and other
fouttesses, for the increase of expenses in Algiers,
for the inundations, and for some other minor items,
amounts for the last year, the present year, and the
next year, to about 58,000,0001. of our money. Of
this sum about 18,000,0001. sterling will be de-
frayed by extraordinary financial resources of past
and present years, leaving about a milliard of francs
to be provided for out of the future resources of the
country. There seems to be no important differ-
ence of opinion as to these facts. They are as-
serted by the Finance Committee in the Chamber
of Deputies, and by the Marquis d'Audiffret in the
Chamber of Peers ; they are admitted by the Minis-
ter of Finance, M. Humana, and by the Governor of
the Bank, Count d'Argout : but the concord of these
authorities, which is complete as to the actual diffi-
culties of the country, ceases to exist with regard to
its future resources. Finance Ministers invariably
look with sanguine expectations to future 'budgets,
growing larger as they are more remote ; and, al.
though it is incontrovertible that the financial dif-
ficulties of France have -gone on increasing in a
fearful ratio from 1830 to the present hour, during
a period of unbroken peace and prosperity, and
even with an increasing revenue, yet it is clear to
M. Humann's discernment that the next seven
years are to be the years of plenty, and on the Ist
of January, 1848, the finances of France are to ar-
rive at a state little short of perfection. Unfortu-
nately in all this we can only see the figures before
us, and the uncertainty beyond.
Assuming, then, that in round numbers the ex-
traordinary credits as yet unprovided for require an
extraordinary milliard of francs, tvo means are sug-
gested for stopping the gap ; the annual appropria-
tion of the sinking fund will give from 65,000,000 f.
to 72,000,000 f. per annum, and a loan of twenty-
five million pounds sterling will cover the remainder.
It is needless in this country to enter into a dis-
cussion on sinking funds, which have played so
conspicuous and so false a part in the history of
our finances. But it is curious to remark that
trance, at exactly one century's distance in point
of time, is following the identical course which it
took us a century of experiments to abandon. The
very words of the Act of the 3d of George I.
(1716) by which a sinking fund was created in
England, were echoed in the French law of 1816,
on the dotation of the Caisse d'Amortissement.
The moneys set apart by those laws for the dis-
charge cf the public debts were to be applied " to
no other use or intent whatever," and in France a
penal sanction was added to the enactment.

We speak not now of the error of the principle,
but we ask what has been the result of this absurd

attempt to put a sealed purse into the hands of a
needy Minister ?
_ _

In 1733, in orris: to keep the land-tax at ls. in
the pound, Sir Robert Walpole broke the ice, and