The Sun.
London, England, 1848-06-24 00:00:00

WooLwlcrt, JUNE 23.
The Rifleman steam-vessel went down the River yes-
terday on a trial of speed, and was found capable of
making eight knots per hour with the Teazer's ehgines
of 100-horse power—half the amount of the horse power
formerly employed in this vessel.

LEPORT OF THE FINANCE COM-
MITTEE OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
ON THE. FINANCIAL STATE OF THE RE-
PUBLIC.

(Drawn up by M. SAINT BEIIRE.)
Citizens Representatives,—The Minister of the
Finances has presented to you a rectified project of the
budget for the service of 1848; he also laid before you,
in the sitting of the 12th June, an expose of the
financial situation of our country, in which he informs
you of the resources, by the aid of which he intends
to provide for the extraordinary changes which the
expropriation of the railways will throw upon the
Treasury. These two documents, of which the latter
completes, by the indication of the ways and means,
the project for the purchase of the railways, have been
the subjects of serious study and profound examination
on the part of your Committee. Convinced that upon a
good administration of the finances depends the future
prosperity of the Republic, your Committee is anxious to
submit to you its observations on the plans of the Mini-
ster, before you enter into the consideration of the great
questions of which the solution will have so much influ-
ence on the destinies of the country. In the critical
position against which it is our duty to provide, we
have had no other idea than that of coming to the aid
of the Government ; but we felt that our first duty
was boldly to approach the difficulties ; to examine
severely our forces and the charges which they bad to
meet, without falling either into pusillanimous discou-
ragement, or into deceptive illusions, and not to launch
ourselves into gigantic expenditure on the faith of un-
certain and badly insured resources. In one word, we
felt that we owed our support to the Government, but that
what we owed, above all things, to it and the country,
was the truth.
The ways and means of the budget of 1848, the project
for the re-purchase of the railways, of which the com-
pletion and the raise en exploitation will impose upon the
Treasury such large outlays, and the financial system,
which indicate the resources from which these charges
are to be provided for, form different portions of the
subject, which are connected with each other, and must
be
examined as a whole.
But before entering upon this examination, your com-
mittee begs to declare that the success of all these
valuations depends upon one fundamental condition—
namely, the establishment of order. The financial
question cannot be treated as separated from the political
question. In a country badly governed,
the re are no
Government, good fiaances. If the by its intelligence
and its force, do not re-establish peace
in the streets ; if
it do not restore tranquillity' with confidence in the
public mind, we should attempt an impolitic task
Order makes credit ; anarchynaEaTkeosr blasnkruptcy.
1. RECTIFIED BUDGET
The budget of expenditure for 1848 rm.ounts to the
sum of 1,680, 1
684,965,870 f., whic 222,006 Eh
, and the budget of receipts to
, leaves a
expenses of 4,744,000 f. balance of receipts over
Your committee, after a long examination, has
been able to accept as certain these favourable
provi-
sions.We doubt that the large sums carried t
account of receipts can be recovered; and in founding o the
an
opinion on the documents which have been laidbefore
us, we fear that, far from showing an excess of receipts,
the budget should present a deficiency that we shallnow
endeavour to appreciate.
The committee has not directed its attention to the
budget of expenses. The examination of the rectified
budget will be the object of a special examination,
which will be laid before you in a short time. Neverthe-
less we can, even at the present time, state that if reduc-
tions were proposed to you, they could only be realized
to a very limited degree, because they have reference
only to the latter months of 1848; and even in that case
they would be counterbalanced by the augmentations
which never fail to arise in the course of the year,
even in calm times, and which are produced to a much
greater extent in our present situation. Already the
different credits which you have granted, and which are
still demanded from you, amount to twenty millions.
The budget of receipts has given rise to serious ob-
jections. The Committee thinks that some of the receipts
have been valued at hap-hazard, while there are others
which it thinks it its duty to contest altogether.
1. The direct contributions are calculated in the
receipts at the sum of 422,123,281 f. Your committee
thinks that, in consequence of the gravity of the crisis,
the whole of this sum will not be recovered ; that the pa-
tentees, for example, which are ad valorem, will present a
large diminution, and it fears that, under this head, there
will be a diminution on the calculation in the budget of
about 200,000,000. The reduction of 30,000,000 efkcted
on the budget by the extraordinary imposition of 45
centimes, appears too little; but on the declaration made
by the Minister that the reception of the tax is going on
favourably, the committee has accepted the favourable
conjectures of the Minister.
2. The tax on mortgage debts established by the
decree of the 9th of April, is calculated in the receipts
at 45 millions. This tax has not yet begun to be col-
lected. According to information transmitted to the
Committee by the Minister of Finances, the Committee
thinks that the mere forming of the registries would be
the work of several months, and that even in the hypo-
thesis that the Assembly should confirm that tax, of
which the assessment is very difficult, it would be almost
impossible this year to recover more than twenty
millions.

3. The progressive tax on successions and donations
does not exist even as a project. The Minister has not
informed us either of the basis upon which he founds his
calculations, nor the progressive gradation of that tax.
Without prejuding in any respect the merit of that mea-
sure, we think it would expose us to dangerous miscal-
culations, if we were at present to accept as certain such
problematical receipts, Nevertheless, we think, that in
the event of the Assembly sanctioning that tax, the
Treasury might find in it a resource of about fifteen
millions.

4. The budget only calculates at 6,671,300 francs the
diminution in the produce of the cutting of woods. This
diminution does nut, to us, appear sufficient. Seeing that
the sales which took place in March last of a part of the
cuttings unsold in 1847 were effected at 40 per cent. under
the valuation, and that the timber trade is in a state of
crisis, we think that we will approach nearer the truth
in reducing the calculation of the budget by six millions
more.

5. The budget calculates at 18,195,000 f. the probable
diminution on the Custom-house duties levied on miscel-
laneous merchandise. Your committee, to whom the
minister has made known the amount of the indirect
contributions levied during the first four months of 1848,
has compared these receipts with those of 1847, and upon
these data, it thinks it must add six millions to the loss
already foreseen by the Minister of the Finances. The
diminution in 1848, as compared with 1847, was, for the
month of March, 3,620,000 f, and for the month of April,
4,352,000 f. If all the months are to show an equal dif-
ference, the total loss will be still greater than it has been
calculated by your committee.
6. The examination of the same tables of receipts
leads your committee to believe that the duty on colo-
nial sugars will also fall eff to the amount of three mil-
lions.

7. The rectified budget calculates the falling off in the
duties on potable liquors at only 6,400,000 f. Your Com-
mittee, considering that the levying of the duty has met
with difficulties in several parts of France, calculates
that this sum is not one-third of what the diminution
will really be ; and it thinks that there will be no exag-
geration in adding a sum of fourteen millions to the
diminution which the Minister has himself already fixed.
8. The budget calculates at 5,000,000 f. the produce of
insurances by the state against risks by fire. The As-
sembly has not yet authorised the expropriation of the
Insurance Companies. The basis of the calculation of
the receipts is unknown to ns. In these circumstances

it is our duty not to allow a sum so problematical to
enter into account of receipts.
9. Lastly, the Minister has set down in the receipts
the sum of 25,000,000 f. as the amount of the national
loan opened in virtue of the decree of the 9th of March,
1348. Your committee does not think that this sum of
25,000,000 f. ought to be considered as a resource on
which the budget of 1848 should depend. The bonus
du tresor thus exchanged constitute, indeed, a receipt,
but not a resource.
In recapitulating these different observations, your
committee express its doubts about the payment of the
following sums