Los Angeles herald., 1909-08-07
FRENCH OBJ ECT
TO TAX BURDEN
CAILLAUX BUDGET CAUSING
CONSERVATION
ABSENCE OF CIVIL LIST MAKES
MO APPARENT DIFFERENCE
Alleged sorcerer Hailed to Court for
MuIcting Women with Alleged
Love PhiaIs May Wind
Up in Prison
BY a. w. L,AMoUREUX

PARIS, Aug. 6.-France has its
Lloyd George, only he is called Call
laux. His budget figures have fright
ened everybody and his proposed in
come tax has driven millions from the
country. Whatever other virtues may
be claimed for the republican form of
government, 1t Is certainly not cheap.
There is no country in Europe more
highly taxed than France, and no
country where, in a certain sense, there
is so little to show for it.
There is no court at the Elysee, no
brilliant routs and fetes, no long civil
list, no costly household, no gorgeous
functionaries holding traditional sine
cures. On the contrary there is a very
plain establishment maintained by NJ.
Fallieres, who has the economical spirit
as fully developed as any of his pre-
decessors.
How, then is it possible to explain
this vast and growing expenditure,
which puts a greater and greater bur-
den upon the people? France is not
singular, of course, in having a budget
that increases by leaps and bounds
Germany and England, as well as the
lesser states, tell tie same story. The
reason in the French case is social
observation-disclosures exclusively that,
whereas in England and in Germany
national defense is a large factor in the
new expenditure.
Number of Officials Growing
The number of functionaries in
France is constantly being added to
for some reason or other. Sometimes
it is new law, the proper applica-
tion ef which requires a large number
of new inspectors; sometimes it Is the
redemption of a railway, such as the
naturalization of the west, which in
c0rporates an immense body of state
servants. Though an enterprise of the
sort should, in theory, prove highly
profitable to the nation, the French
have no genius for departmental ad-
ministration on a paying basis. The
postoffice Is a deplorable example of
lack Of practical grasp of detail. How
ever that may be, the national in
debtedness increases and the national
expenditure grows greater every day.
But there must be an end somewhere.
NJ. Courteline, perhaps the driest
humorist of his day. has been rather
surprisingly defeated in an action
against a cinematograph company. The
latter represented, without his author
ity, scenes OF his most cutting as well
as funniest comedy, "Boubouroche. "
The courts found that the form alone
of a play is the property of dramatic
author. the subject being part of a
ilOl lLelSC Va NiiO human
and dismissed the authors action, with
costs. M. Courtellne though consider
ing that to assume that all plots belong
ito the common heritage of the human
mind" is a large order, could but sub
nit He has lately, however, been vim
dicated in a measure by the interna-
tional congress of literary copyright
which, meeting at Copenhagen, passed
unanimously a resolution "regrettine
the said decision and registering the
opinion that authors rights cover moi
only the form of work but also its
plan" 1t is the old question over again
Of form and matter, but perhaps it is
one with which courts of law are not
overfamiliar.