The Sun.
London, England, 1868-06-24 00:00:00

On Friday, June 26, in 3 vols.,

INGLEWOOi).- HOUSE.
A NOVEL.
Hurst and Blaekett, Publishers, 13, Great Marlborough-street.

(1011 P AGNIE GENERALE TRANS-
AMA. :Tian
--E, 8, Place Vendome, Paris.
FRENCH MAIL STEAMERS,
CHINA, JAPAN, NORTH AND SOUTH PACIFIC,
AND CENTRAL AMERICA (via Panama).
Leave St. Nazaire on the Bth of each month for Mar-
tinique, St. Martha (United States of Columbia), Colon,
Aspinwall (Isthmus of Panama), La Guayra, Porto Ca-
bello, Guadeloupe, Trinidad, Demerara, Paramaribo,
CsaanyeFnrnaen,c&isce.,oC,
Calhlaion,a,Vaanlpda
jraaipsaon,
.&c., San Jose, La Union,
WEST INDIES AND MEXICO.
Leave St. Nazaire an the 16th of each month for St.
Thomas, Havana, Vu:a Cruz, New Orleans, Porto Rico,
Haiti, Santiago de Cuba, Guadeloupe, Martinique.
NEW YORK
Leave every 14 days, from Havre and Brest, for New
York.
From HAVRE.—June 18th, July 2d and 16th.
From BREST —June 20th, July 4th and 18th.
RATES OF PASSAGE.
From HA` $E or BREST to NEW YORK.
First Class .................. 825 fr. According to
17 .................. 700 fr.; Cabin.
Second Class ............... 425 fr.
Third Class ... ............. 275 fr.
From Paris to Now York, via Havre or Brest, includ-
ing railway ticket, 850 fr. and 725 fr., according to cabin ;
second class, 440ir. • third class, 285 fr.
Hand-books, with full details of all the routes of this
Company, can be had of
STRINGER, PEMBROKE, and Co.,
Agents, 8, Austinfriars, London, E.C.

AUSYRIAN FINANCE.

___ -e-

The following is a translation of the despatch
sent by the Austrian Government to Count Appony;,
the Austrian Ambassador in London, in reference
to the Address presented to his Excellency by a
number of London bankers and merchants respecting
the financial measares now before the Iteichsrath
taxing the Coupons of the Public Debt :
" VIENNA, June 9.

" Monsieur le Comte,—The Imperial and Royal
Government has approved the preliminary reply
which your Excellency has made to the address
which some London bankers have presented to you,
with the good intention of warning us against the
effect which the financial measures now under dis-
cussion in the Reichsrath might exercise upon our
credit. As your Excellency is aware, similar mani-
festations have reached us from other quarters, and
you will have derived from the despatches which I
have addressed to Prince Metternich arguments
against exaggerated apprehensions. Aware of the
importance that it is to us to conciliate the good-
will and the confidence of the City of London—.
that great barometer of the monetary fluctuations
of the world—l deem it advisable to add a few
general remarks to the special observations made in
the despatches above alluded to, so as to enable you
to defend the measures detailed by a painful but
urgent necessity, and to define exactly the point of
view which the Imperial and Royal Government has
assumed towards the creditors of the State.

" Called to office by the confidence placed in me
by the Emperor-King, under circumstances made
still more critical by the want of confidence in them-
selves displayed by rulers on the morrow of a san-
guinary catastrophe, I found at the very outset of
my Ministry Europe prepared for the spectacle of a
moral, political, and financial bankruptcy. The
Emperor-King alone gave us then the example of
courage and energy which the historians of our
epoch will appreciate better than our contem-
poraries.
" The cure of the bleeding wound which his
Apostolic 'Majesty had undertaken depended in the
first instance upon a definitive arrangement with
populations which claim allegiance to the Crown of
St. Stephen. To render full and complete justice
to the chivalrous nation to which, M. le Comte, you
feel proud to belong was the first wish of his Apos-
tolic Majesty, the first order which he deigned to
give me when he called me to his Council.
" It has been readily admitted that I lost no time
in obeying that august inspiration. The re-estab-
lishment of peace at home was the first fruit of our
labours, and, the friends of Austria deigned to con-
gratulate me at the time upon the promptitude with
which the negotiations were conducted which ended
in the coronation of the Emperor-King.
"The arrangement due to the parties interested
would have been impossible if au attempt had been
made to exclude the questions of finance. It was
urgent, even at the risk of not succeeding at once,
to enter into those thorny questions, which would
have exacted deeper duties than circumstances al-
lowed. It was necessary to decide vital questions,
and solve them in such a manner as to exclude the
possibility of returning to them at the risk of com-
promising the whole.
"The arrangement into which we have entered
with Hungary is, moreover, the primary cause of
the abnormal position in which the Cisleithan
Ministry found itself on the very day of its forma-
tion. Essentially a constitutional Ministry, repre-
senting the majority of the Reichsrath, the Govern-
ment formed by Prince Auersperg had to reckon
with the accomplished fact of an indispensable ar-
rangement with Hungary, as also with the passions
and exigencies of a young Parliament, showing it-
self for that very reason jealous of its prerogatives.
It may be admitted without injustice to the en-
lightened patriotism of assemblies which discuss in
full liberty in the Parliamentary arena that the
Reichsrath, in entering upon the questions of
finance, did not perhaps always give proof of that
self-possession which experience gives under similar
circumstances to the House of Commons when
directed by great financial authorities like Mr.
Disraeli or Mr. Gladstone. It is no less true that
our deputies have shown the high importance which
they attach to the wise precepts which have fallen
from the eloquent lips of that member of the Eng-
lish Parliament. No one has more ably than him-
self denounced the pernicious system of loans. No
one has warned Europe and America more frankly
against the inevitable consequences of that terrible
custom of burdening future generations to elude the
necessity of crushing contemporaries by excessive
taxes! To pay the interest of one's debts by contract-
ing new debts, is not discounting the future while
ruining the present ? is it not deteriorating capital
by destroying that confidence which is the source of
credit? If, then, the Reichsrath of Vienna has
resolved to halt at the brink of that fatal chasm—
if it has wound up its financial belief, exclaim-
ing ' We will endeavour to fulfil our engage-
ments by labour ; we wish to balance our budget
by developing the resources of the empire, but with-
out having recourse to new loans in time of peace,'
I flatter myself that it may count upon the approval
of the most enlightened financiers of our epoch.
Nevertheless, this patriotic resolve exacted sacri-
fices. Rome was not built in a day, and if the
free populations who inhabit the domains of the
Emperor-King wished to place themselves in a po-
sition to defend their neutrality, while still advanc-
ing resolutely in the path of progress and of civili-
sation, it was indispensable to consider the means
of lightening the load of a debt of 3 milliards, the
interest upon which absorbed 128 millions annually
—l2B millions of which Hungary was only able to
guarantee a quota which did not cover one-third
of the amount.

" If we call to mind that the greater portion of
our debt has been contracted since 1848, if we
examine the rate of issue of the successive loans
which the crises which have succeeded each other
in Austria during the last 20 years have imposed
upon the Imperial and Royal Government, if,
finally, we study the quotations of the Bourse, it
cannot be denied that the great majority of our
creditors—those who have purchased Austrian
stock since 1848—have invested their money to
very great advantage. Now, every one knows that
the rate of interest is necessarily always in inverse
proportion with the security of the capital, and
every man who intrusted his money to us was
aware before hand that to draw 7,8, or 9 per cent.
he exposed his capital to chances which he might
have avoided by satisfying himself with 3 per cent.
in the English Consols.
" The Dutch, always renowned as financial ex-
perts, have, I am told, even taken the precaution
to discount beforehand these risks and chances by
discounting year by year from the capital invested
in Austria the interest exceeding 5 per cent., and,
thanks to this calculation, many of them find them-
selves already at the present moment completely
covered—that is to say, in possession of obligations
which scarcely cost them anything.
"If, then, the Reichsrath proposes to bring a
temporary tax on the Austrian Rentes it stops at a
,meagiuro far less radical than would be a more or