The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1871-07-14
France and Her DeDr.

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France and Her Debt.
Since the day OF. Sedan, the world has be-
held no more surprising spectacle than the
extraordinary alacrity with which the still
ligreat French people have FASTENED to shoul-
der the enormous financial burdens which
their nl-success in the struggle against uni
Eted Germany has imposed upon the grande
Nation. The Paris correspondent OF the
New York Journat.of Commerce attributes
| an immediate and decisive effect in this re-
gard to .the agnihcent Grafton OF NJ. Theirs
ain the National Assembly on the goth in
.stant,n which went for to demonstrate, as
|iit was intended to do, that the financial po-
Iisition Of the. country, though heavily encum-
Ebered, was far from desperate. and to prove
that France was not only willing but able to
Inject all her liabilities. There are some
statements in this speech, chara cterized as
the great event of the day, which are still OF
interest. NJ !Thiers began by saying that
the best means to obtain the confidence OF
the financial world to which they were about
Ito appeal was to sstell. the truth" J" and this
he was prepared and determined to do. And
first he showed that under the Empire this
had never been done, The imperial budgets
were cut Dip and divided into parts, ,dishon-
estly, and with the willul intention Of max
ing it almost impossible to. .get'at their real
results. This system; he promised them,
would be entirely abandoned, and the bud
get Of 1872 would be that which alone could
be true, viz, budget which included at
once all expenses. Before proceeding to the
financial question NJ. Thlers reiterated in
strong terms his well known opinion on the
political shortsightedness OF Tie Empire,
first, in allowing the battle OF Sadowa to be
fought. at all, and secondly, in endeaTofing
to repair the fault then committed by still
greater, in rushing into the late war with an
army unprepared and without allies..
With regard to the events OF the war itself
M. Thiers expressed the following opinions:
He approved, he said, Of the resistance OF
Paris. The siege Of Paris had been great
noble and useful spectacle, and had raised
France in the estimation OF other nations.
The question was ''when" the war ought to
have stopped, and his opinion was that the
war, as it was called, began, not in Paris,
but on theLoire. Itwas difficult, perhaps,
to fix the precise moment when the war
ought to have stopped, but. he thoughtit
might have been stopped on the Loire at q
moment when the expense entailed would
not have exceeded thirteen or fourteen hun
dred millions; and his conviction was that
had peace been made then, they would have
lost less both ih territory and in. the war in-
demnity which was exacted. The latter
mightthen, he thought, have been fixed at
O. 500, 900, instead OF 5000, 900, 900, which,
with their own expenses, would have brought
the entire loss incurred by the war to within
four thousand millions. But the government,
which was then in reality in the hands OF
single man, by pushing the war to disastrous
e1tremities, not only expended l,50o, o0o, 600
more, but caussd the indemnity to be raised
2, 500, oOO,o 900, thereby doubling the loss in
CURED by the war, and making it 5000, ,0Oo,-
600 instead of 1900, 100000. This was the
sum they now had to meet, and he was pre-
pared to say, ana tell capitalists and the
world, that they had the means Of meeting
it. The blame OF such.a situation was to be
divided equally between the Empire, which
had begun war which had cost them 4,o0O,-
600, 900, and those who had prolonged that
war at cost OF 1900, 100000 more.
For the next three years NJ. Theirs con.
siders that the country sees it's way clearly
to meet and liquidate all its liabilities with
out any fresh appeal to public credit Its
true that the French budget will be raised
to something like 2,5O0,O ,O0O,O 900; but then
that, he says, was the amount to which the
Empireitself was rapidly appro1imating even
before the war, whereas nov 200, ,o00,0 900 OF
thatsum consists ota sinking fund, de-oted
to the gradual extinction OF the public bur
dens. Altogether" said NJ. Theirs, in con-
clusion, ''though l might wish the financial
opposition of France to be better than it is,
"haye no hesitation in declaring it to be
sound and in that opinion, with the one
essential condition OF tranquility attached to
it, most persons who have read his luminous
financial ezpose will, in the opinion Of the
Journals correspondent, be inclined to
agree.