The Sun.
London, England, 1844-01-18 00:00:00

THE FRENCH BUDGET.
(From tlie Quotidienne.)
M. Lacave Laplagae is certainly an able financier, but
he will not easily create a belief in the equilibrium of
his budget for 1845. It will be in vain for him to classify
and arrange his figures in ranks ; he will never conceal
the deficit so completely as not to be found out by the
tax-payers and by the treasury itself. The Minister,
to establish his equilibrium, has entrenched himself
behind an old and worn-out fiction—the distinction
between the ordinary budget and the extraordinary
budget—a subtle distinction, but which does not make
it less necessary to dip into the same purse to meet ex-
penses so happily distinguished. Expenses are paid by
receipts, and, when these are insufficient, there is a de-
ficit. This truism needs no demonstration ; but we will,
nevertheless, take the trouble of proving to M. Lacave
Laplagne that his equilibrium is a pure illusion, and that
the budget fur 1845 is in deficit, like all budgets since 1830.
BUDGET OF EXPENSES. F.
.
96,431,344

Ordinary
Extraordinary

Total 1,372,538,141
Budget of receipts

E
This
of expenses over receipts
is the true state of the accouut, and no arithmeti-
cal artifice can alter it. At present, therefore, the
budget of 1845 presents a deficit of nearly ninety-
six millions. When the inevitable supplementary cre-
dits, those satellites of the budget, leave been realised,
this deficit will be still greater. M. Lacave Laplagne
has divided the extraordinary budget into two por-
tions. The first is of 62,431,344 f., which will be paid
out of the loan of 450,000,000 f. The second is of
34,000,000 E, which is carried to the charge of the float-
ing debt. This is the chapter of railroads. The loan
takes its rise from the deficit ; for if there were no
deficit there would be no loan. The floating debt, a for-
tiori, constitutes a deficit. It is true that M. Lacave
Laplagne calls this extraordinary resources. We will ad-
mit him to do so, for words are as nothing against facts ;
but still it remains that all the expenses which exceed
the amount of the produce of the State domains, the
duties and the taxes, leave a deficit which must be co-
vered by extraordinary resources, that is to say, by mak-
ing loans and consolidating Treasury bonds. This opera-
tion, from 1837 to 1853, the period assigned for the com-
pletion of the extraordinary public works, will have
loaded the annual budget with 66,000,000 f. rentes. This
clearly appears to be in our eyes a deficit, and the Com-
mittee on the budget for 1844 was of the same opi-
nion. Such aro the effects of what are called extraordi-
nary resources, and which NI. Lacave Laplagne has
attempted to dissimulate in his speech on presentinir
the budget for 1845. The Minister of Finances has not
only occupied himself with the future, he has thought
it necessary to give the accounts of the past, and has
dressed them up by the same process as that by which
he concocted the budget for 1845. lie has cut off with-
out any hesitation hundreds of millions from the side
of the expenditure. We have looked into the actual
state of our finances, and found that, at the end of 1843,
there was a deficit on the budget of ordinary expenses,
to the amount of 540 millions. This was composed of
a deficit prior to 1840 of 256 millions of the deficits of
1841, 1842, and 1843, and finally of supplementary
credits and extraordinary charges carried to this
last year's account. M. Lacave Laplagne, to simplify
the statement, does not trouble himself with the
deficit anterior to 1840, and finds it to suit his purpose
better to stop at the end of 1844, in order to embody in
his ways and means the reserve of the sinking-fund. By
this stratagem, and by bringing into the account some
attenuations of credits, and an increase in the produce
of the indirect taxes, he reduces the deficit of the ordi-
nary budgets at the end of 1844 to 151,000,000 f.
As the Minister was in such a good train, it would
have cost hies but little more to have reduced the
deficit down to zero. M. Lacave Laplagne knows, how-
ever, that the Chamber, notwithstanding its habitual
complaisance, and above all, in voting the budget, will
not be deluded by such a phantasmagoria of figures. In
fact, the Committee on the Budget for 1844, in its report,
page 12, established the deficit previous to that year at
504,000,000 f. If tht re be added to this sum the supple-
mentary credits decreed since the closing of the session,
we arrive at the sum we have already given.
The Minister of the Finances cannot dispute the cor-
rectness of this amount. It has been reduced, it is
true, by some annulments of credits, and, as we have
before said, by an increase in the produce of the taxes.
But these two circumstances do not make any sen-
sible alteration in the total, and much less, as
we have not yet come to the end of the supple-
mentary credits for 1843. Thus there is a deficit of
about 500,000,000 f. in the ordinary budget on Ist
January, 1544, and 96,000,000 f, left uncovered in that
for 1845. This will be our real situation on the Ist of
January, 1846, without mentioning the engagements en •
tered into for extraordinary public works."

PARIS GAIETIES.—The Count de Rambuteau, Pre-
feet of the Seine, gave, on Saturday evening, his first ball for
the season, at the Hotel de Ville. The gildings and paintings
of its splendid saloons seemed to be augmented in number and
beauty ; and the dazzling brilliancy of the lights, playing upon
the jewellery and rich dresses of the finest and most elegant
women of Paris, made this, as they have ever, done the fetes
given at the Hotel de Ville, the most agreeable in France. Fo-
reigners of distinction never leave Paris without having gained
admittance to the halls of the Count de Rambuteau. Among
those present on this occasion we remarked her Royal High-
ness the Duchess of Braganza, the Duke d'Ossuna, the Prince
and Princess d'Anglona, the Duke San Teodoro, the Duke
and Duchess de Gagliera, the Austrian Ambassador and the
Countess d'Appony, the Sardinian Ambassador, the Countess
of Luxburg and daughter, and the Bavarian and Danish
Ministers. Among the numerous French visitors were the
Baroness de 31ackau, General and Baroness Athalin, and
several Peers of France and Deputies, with their ladies. The
supper-rooms were thrown open at twelve o'clock, and the
tables were spread with every luxury. The dancing, animated
by an excellent orchestra, was kept up to a very late hour.—
Galignani.
TIPPERARY TRANQUILLITY.—I have been just
speaking to a gentleman residing in the neighbourhood of Lit-
tleton, which is but four miles front Thurles. and has a police-
station in it. Having asked him about the state of the neigh-
bourhood—whether he was afraid of being molested, and what
precautions he took from being surprised and murdered
like poor Mr. Waller'a family and others? To which
his reply was simple and laconic enough. ". In the first
place," said he, " not afraid, and that's the grand secret ;
in the next, I have all my doors locked at an early
hour, and with the keys in my pocket, &c. I cannot be easily
surprised, even by the treachery of servants, who are all shut
out from my own apartments by a cross door ; and though last,
not least, we never sit down to dinner without examining our
arms, and placing a double-barrelled gun and a case of pistols
at each side of the fire-place, not forgetting to put the poker in
the fire at the same time, where it is left for the night, in
order to have something hot and comfortable for our friends,
should they favour us with a visit."— Tipperary Conatitutivi.
EASTERN UNION RAILWAY.—WO may nowicon-
gratulate the public on the certainty of there being a
direct line of railway between Ipswich and London. The
rival line has been abandoned. The Eastern Counties
Railway express their wish to see the Ipswich line car-
ried out ; and still better than all, the money to furm
the railway has been fully subscribed. The shares have,
we understand, been all taken up, and we have no doubt
that the railway will be not only a benefit to the town
and neighbourhood, but a safe investment for capital.
These gratifying results are to be attributed to the energy
and public spirit manifested by the inhabitants of
Ipswich, to which we have frequently had the satisfac-
tion of giving expression ; and it would be injustice if
we did not add that it was in a high degree owing to the
vigilance aad indomitable resolution of Mr. J. C. Cob,
bold, whose zeal in this matter deserves the thanks of
his fellow-townsmen.--Ipswich Express.
AN EDITOR'S SALARY.—At a conference of dele-
gates of the coal miners, held in Manchester a few days ago,
the subject of the amount of salary to be paid to the editor of
the Miner's Advocate, a fortnightly publication recently esta-
blished in this town, it was, after some discussion, agreed that
twenty-one shillings per week be the amount of the editor's sa-
lary ! with an allowance of twenty shillings per annum, as a
subscription to a news-room, to enable him to see the papers I
Tyne Mercury.
We have heard that the Monopolists in this neigh-
bourhood are raising, not " heaven and earth," as the saying
goes, but earth and the nether regions, to get up an Anti-
League meeting. When such a monster as Monopoly dies, we
must expect a struggle or two; but we doubt if its friends
here, with all their tine hatred to the good cause, will be able
to effect anything in the way of staying Monopoly's progress to
perdition. The cause is here, as everywhere else, hopeless.—
' Cambridge Advertiser.
PLOUGHING lIATCII BETWEEN Two FARMERS.—

On Thursday last, there was an interesting exhibition of
rural skill at Terling, when two farmers of the neigh-
bourhood, Mr. Balls, of that parish, and Mr. Warren, of
Hatfield, each of them being quite positive in his own
mind that he could best " draw the clean furrow and the

level line," came forward to try their prowess in the
plough-field. The stakes were an even 5/. aside ; though
if the adage holds good in husbandry, that " practice
makes perfect," Mr. Balls had somewhat the advantage,
inasmuch as he is often in the habit of holding the
handle of " the good old plough," while Mr. Warren
does not so frequently have a share in the matter. The
match took place on the farm of Mr. Greenwood, and
the competitors travelled over two stetches in very re-
spectable style ; but the judges, Mr. Speakman, of Fair-
sted Hall, and Mr. Ellis, of Hatfield, awarded the a
and the palm of victory to Mr. Balls. The parties then
retired to the White Hart, at Terling, and over a flowing
and a friendly glass, the health of the winner and suc-
cess to the plough, were given with the heartiness of
the Essex yeoman. The affair has awakened a spirit of
emulation in the parish, and Mr. John Cousins and his
six sons, will plough against any other farmer and his
six sons in the county for 1001.—Essex Herald.
WASTE LANDS.—ENCLOSURE ACT.-011 the motion
of Lord Worsley, a very long return was made in June
last " of the true or estimated quantity in statute mea-
sure of all common or waste lands not being held in
severalty, in every parish or tithe commutation district,
so far as the same can bo ascertained from the schedules
to the agreements or awards, or from the apportionments
received by the Tithe Commissioners," and also " A Re-
turn of all Acts passed since the year 1800 for the En-
closure of Common or Waste Lands in England and
Wales, not being held in severalty, distinguishing the
parishes and counties in which the same were situated,
together with the estimated number of Acts passed from
1800 to 1810, from 1810 to 1820, from 1820 to 1830, and
from 1830 to 1840." The summary of England shows
that in the forty counties the total quantity of land
amounts to 6,718,523 acres, of which the quantity of
common or waste land is stated to be 1,358,419 acres. In
Middlesex alone there are 1,321 acres of waste land.
The largest quantity of waste land is in the North
Riding of Yorkshire, there being no less than 132,815
acres of common or waste land out of a total of 1,897,592
acres, making a total of waste land in England and
Wales of 1,860,232 out of the total of 8,616,115. By the
second return it appears that from 1800 to 1810 the
number of Enclosure Acts passed was 905, from 1810 to
1840 the number was 741, from 1820 to 1830 the num-
ber was 192, and from 1830 to 1840 the number of En-
closure Acts was 125.