Our Paris Letter.

Manawatu Herald, 30 June 1894, Page 3

Our Paris Letter.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) Paris, 30th April, 1894. M. Burdeau's Budget will shortly be referred to the Budget Commission tor criticism and examination. A vast amount of intrigue and political arrangement between the varions groups of politicians of which the Chamber is composed, generally precedes the nominations of this commission. This is perhaps inevitable but the utility of the Commission at all is very questionable chosen in a hap -hazard sort of way, most of its members know nothing whatever of finance, and are far more anxiotui to give pro minence to their political nostrums, than to produce a good Budget. If M. Burdeau's Budget is not altered and amended out of existence, its fate will be a very different one from all preceding Budgets. The President of the Budget Commission is also tempted to show himself a much better Finance Minister than the titular holder of that office, and his work is generally done in a captious spirit, which aims at reconstruction rather than the amendment of the Budget. M. Bui'd&au's Budget is a particularly delicate piece of financial machinery, and nothing is easier than to throw it into inextricable confusion. A decree lately issued by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, with respect to the marriages of diplomatic and consular agents, requires the formal consent of the Minister to such marriages. The demand for authorization must be sent in a month prior to the publication of the banns, and now compliance with this regulation entails the revocation of the agent omitting to make such application. This regulation has always been in force as regards consular agents, and although not compulsory on the part of diplomatic agents, it has always been the practice to inform the Minister of marriages between diplomatists and foreign ladies. As regards diplomatists therefore, the decree simply makes obligatory that, which has always been a matter of usage. But even so, the decree is not very complimentary, either to the diplomatists or their future spouses, as it betrays an id^a, either that diplo- i matists might swerve from the path of duty through female influence, or that their wives would uso their natural influence over their husbands j in a manner dangerous to French interests. The decree also leaves out of consideration, that under certain circumstances foreign wives might be extremely useful to diplomatists.