The Sun.
London, England, 1868-01-28 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

After many vague reports, says the Times, and some
little mystery in official circles, the intentions of the
French Government have been revealed by the Moniteur,
which yesterday published M. Magne's report on the
financial condition of the country. For some time past
it has been no secret that there was to be a loan ; the only
question was as to its amount and the purposes to which
it was to be devoted. Strange to say, the report will pro-
bably tend rather to dispel than to create apprehension
in France. In that country of eager curiosity and re-
stricted political information the people are always ready
to credit authority with something exaggerated, either
for good or evil. They expect much, and they fear much ;
the deliberations of the Sovereign and of men in power
are watched with a solicitude unknown to us, who are
accustomed to the tentative and timid appeals of English
Ministers to Parliament. In the present instance the
French people have bad, as it turns out, an exaggerated
notion of the wants of the State, or rather of the sum
which would be asked for to satisfy them. Of course we
know not how long the supply now demanded will last.
No one can say when the warlike financiers of the empire
will be compelled to confess to more unbalanced
budgets, to deplore more "unforeseen circumstances." But
for the present it is only 440,000,000 f.—that is, £17,000,000
sterling—and not five or six hundred millions, as some
were saying. Where we see a startling addition to national
liabilities, the French, who have been prepared by the
events of the last two years for something serious, will
draw their breath freely, and be thankful that they have
escaped so easily. Glory and influence must be paid for,
and the French are now settling for the past and investing
of the future. The Ministers of the Empire always know
how to assume the style of candour. If well•kept books
be the hypocrisy of commerce, an ostentatiously open
manifesto, with just a little air of penitence about it, is
the trick of Imperial finance. TLe French ought to be
satisfied when they are informed with such precision how
much the Government has spent above its income. On
the Ist of December, 1867, the floating debt amounted to
936,000,000 f. "In consequence of events beyond control,"
the receipts of the budget of 1867 shew a deficit of 26,000,000 f.
" Adding to this," continues the abstract of the report,
"the extraordinary credit voted by the Corps L6gislatif
on the 31st of May, 1867, of £158,000,000, and the cost of
the expedition to Rome, there is a total of 189,000,000 f.
necessary to cover the outlay of 1867." These figures are
worthy of all attention. The year 1867 may be called an
average year. True, the Mexican expedition was brought
to an end, and so was the renewed interference in Italy,
but under the system of the present Empire it is reason-
able to suppose that there always will be "exceptional
circumstances" and " events beyond control " to disturb
the equilibrium of budgets ; so that, whatever a Minister
may say, we cannot believe the expenditure of 1867 to
have been in any way anomalous. Now, with a floating
debt getting on for a milliard, we find that in the year
1867 the expenditure of France exceeded the very liberal
estimate of her rulers by the sum of seven millions and a
half sterling. Besides this there are various augmenta-
tions of expense which will be felt by the years 1868 and
1869, and will require supplementary resources to the
amount of 82 millions to be shared between them.
The Morning Post devotes a leader to the same subject.
That this budget will provoke much adverse criticism the
Post takes for grantA, but, unless the recent military
policy of the Imperial Government be called in question,
we doubt if it can be successfully assailed. The items of
expenditure are doubtless large, but they are necessary.
The cost of the expedition to Rome may be objected to,
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but it will be less on the ground of the addition it has
made to the national outlay than the inexpediency of in-
tervening betwec i the Italian people and the complete
vindication of the unity and independence of their country.
To do the Emperor justice, he has of late done his utmost
to check those drains which have hitherto exhausted the
resources of the country. He withdrew from Mexico, and
by so doing wiped out a formidable item which for years
past appeared on the wrong side of the national balance.
sheet. There is not, if we may except the occupation of
the States of the Church, a single instance of foreign in-
tervention at the present moment with which the Opposi-
tion can legitimately reproach the Imperial Government.
The falling off in the revenues will provoke adverse com-
ment, but it is not improbably due to causes over which
the Government have no control.

The Telegraph thinks the most instructive thing about
M. Magne's statement to be, not his facts, but his hints ;
not what he says, but what he suggests. It was known that
the Army Bill would involve fresh expenditure, and that
the wonder-working Chassepot was not a free gift from
the upper or nether skies, but, on the contrary, a costly
product of human skill and labour. Any reasonable out-
lay on that account, therefore, would have excited no
surprise. The necessity of making so prominent mention
of the fleet, however, is less evident ; and the significant
way in which it is coupled with the defence of the country,
and of the national honour, may for the moment revive
apprehensions that were g-adually dying out. Convinced
as we are that the Emperor is sincerely bent on peace
and that the nation would second him in that resolve with
positive enthusiasm, we regret the use of any allusions,
officially, that may tend to create a less favourable im-
pression. Hitherto the navy of the Empire has certainly
not been considered a weak point; and it might have been
thought that the changes required by the new conditions
of warfare, whether for offence or resistance, could be
carried out through the ordinary medium of the annual
budget, without being conspicuously paraded as the
reason for a permanent addition to the burdens of the
country.

Any good scheme for the extension of technical educa-
tion must, in the opinion of the Daily News, begin by
including the first rudiments of physical science within
the limits of the ordinary education provided for all classes.
In the schools of primary education the elements of scien-
tific knowledge may be taught to the elder boys, and on
the emergence of such boys into the world of labour they
will be in a position to appreciate the value of scientific
knowledge, and to seek for that special technical instruo
tion which their particular callings require. The diffi-
culty here, no doubt, is, that boys seldom remain in
the primary schools till they are of a sufficiently
mature age to enable the teachers to impart scientific
knowledge of the most elementary character ; but
since we are to be called upon to discuss a scheme
for compulsory education, that difficulty need not
be regarded as insuperable. In middle-class schools no
such difficulty exists, and we apprehend that the demand
of parents to have their children educated with some
regard to the probable requirements of their future modes
of life cannot be much longer resisted. So with the uni-
versities. The pressure of public opinion has induced
those venerable institutions to pay a much greater amount
of attention to the teaching of physical science than for-
merly ; but so long as the chief rewards are kept for
mathematical and classical scholars, students of science
remain at a crushing disadvantage ; men who might with
great advantage to the world have applied themselves to
the study of science are compelled, by the necessity of
obtaining a fellowship, to follow one of the favoured but
less congenial branches of learning. This is an injustice
to science that will soon be remedied.
Apropos of education and Mr. Lowe's views thereon, the
Herald presents us with that hon. gentleman's characteris-
tics. Mr. Lowe, it says, is nothing if not extreme. He was
an extreme Radical in Australia, and an extreme—or even
petrified—Tory in the House of Commons. His official
career is almost exclusively associated with the adminis-
tration of the demminational system of education, yet we
now find him coming forward as the advocate of a scheme
which would give the death-blow to that system. He is a
man who can only look at a question from one point of
view at a time. He has no idea of the safety and the
wholesomeness of the via media. He is careless about his
premises, and violent, dogmatic, and overbearing in as-
serting his conclusions. With regard to his scheme of
education, our contemporary expresses an opinion that to
adopt it would be to sacrifice much which is valuable in
that which now prevails, and to con tentrate the intellect
too • exclusively, and therefore exhaustively and ineffec-
tively, upon those special branches of training which Mr.
Lowe particularly affects. The experience of practical
educationists is entirely opposed to such a plan, and what-
ever the Liverpool philomaths may think of it, the Herald
does not apprehend that the speech it has been
noticing will tend to make many converts.
In the opinion of the Standard, the French Government
has gained no victory through its prosecutions of the
French press. Our contemporary asks, in the name of all
journalism, why this profitless interference with the liber-
ties of the press ? The Emperor's new Home Minister
exhibits rather more than the necessary zeal. He mis-
takes the time in which he lives. This is not exactly an
age of obedience. This is not precisely the generation
which accepts without questioning the yoke of authority.
We have learned to regard the press as an institution, and
the Third Napoleon might have been expected to think of
it more highly than to permit these petty, purposeless,
and resuitless prosecutions. For what becomes of them,
after all ? They abate no hostility; they narrow no oppo-
sition ; they rather embitter than soften political dif-
ferences. And it is in the essence of their success to fling
down a public challenge. We have not hitherto thought
the French Emperor prone to multiply causes
of rebuke
against himself. He is too powerful and too popular for
that. But why should he dread the epitomised reports
of debates in a Parliament created by himself ? The
reply is at once to be anticipated. Such reports are
infringements of the Constitution. Well, but is the Con.
stitution so weak that it cannot withstand the effect of
these debates, accurately rendered ? In the interest of
France, we should hope not. There is a wonderful wealth
of journalistic ability in France. It is not against this.
however, that the recent criminal proceedings have been
directed. It is against the simple records of legislative
debate, usually so precise in their truth and so sparkling
in their vigour.