FRANCE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4368, 20 March 1875, Page 1 (Supplement)

FRANCE.

(From the New York Jlendd.) Paris, October 30, 1874. The city of Paris is about to contract a new loan of 52,000,000d015., more than half of which is required to pay off a portion of the floating debt and to meet other obligations already contracted. The remainder (23,400,000d0_15.) will be expended on public works, and it is to be hoped that some progress will at length be made with the restoration of the Tuilleries and the Hotel de Ville. The loan will be taken up readily enough, but Paris can hardly bear the 3,000,000d015. of additional taxation which it ■will necessitate. MANCE JinST COMB TO THE BESCUE and render material aid to the finances of the capital by a vote of the Assembly. It is only fair that France should pay for the losses suffered by Paris during the two sieges. Yet France herself is hard pressed and cannot, in the nature of things, avoid an ultimate suspension of payments unless she takes the question of retrenchment seriously in hand. The estimates for the Civil Service especially need looking into. It has long been a complaint with Frenchmen that their country is overgoverned by innumerable functionaries, all paid, and too many of them having large powers of drawing on the public funds. A republican government once firmly seated would probably withdraw the State subvention to the Catholic Church and the other religious bodies, thus saving between fifteen and twenty million dollars annually.

ANOTHER DIPLOMATIC COMPLICATION seems to be threatened, if the news from Santander be true, that a Spanish gunboat has fired a rifle volley at a French merchant ship and subsequently sent a party to inspect her. This incident is the more to be regretted, as Marshal MacMahon'a Cabinet is honestly doing its best to observe international obligations—a colonel and thirty-two officers of the Carlist army having just been interned at Bourges and in the neighborhood. To this old town, famous in history as at one time the sole refuge of King Charles VII. against the invading armies of England, the Minister of War, General de Cissey, has just paid a visit. He was duly shown over a cannon foundry, spent a few minutes in the cathedral, and then called on the Duke of Aleneon. Indeed, the Orleans princes are treated with such extraordinary deference by government officials, that one almost wonders what they would gain by the so-called restoration—that is, the accession of the Comte de Chambord or the Conite de Paris to the throne. Not power certainly, of which the king would have very little to spare ; it is, moreover, a tradition with Bourbon monarchs not to allow the members of the Royal family much political influence. When the Count of Artois (afterwards Charles X.) wished to take a part in the councils of Louis XVIII., Talleyrand interposed, and said to him, " When your Royal Highness becomes a king, you will thank me for having excluded the prince 3 of the blood from a participation in your prerogative." Probably all that ■ the princes hope for by the re-establishment of the monarchy is A LITTLE lIAIVD CASH, which these descendants of a hundred kings pocket with infinite grace whenever they have a chance. The " dotations " or allowances from the civil list to French princes have always been handsome. It may be interesting to American readers to know what Prince Jerome Napoleon received under the Empire. He has just issued an address to the electors of Ajaccio, declaring that " he never shared in the ideas, the policy or the hopes of Imperial rule." This is perfectly true. His Highness shared in something much more substantial than hopes and ideas—to wit, A Year. Civil list s *°Sf-S2S Salary as a Senntor 0.000 As Councillor of State f>,ooo As Knifriit of Grand Cross of the Legion of Hono? 1.000 As a General of Division (not on the active list) 2,000 The Empire lasted eighteen years, so that Princo Napoleon realised by his cousin's elevation the modest sum of 7,452,000d015. Nor was this the whole extent of his gains. The Palais Royal, the rental of which cannot be estimated at less than 60,000d015., was placed at his absolute disposal, and he was commonly reported to receive sundry allowances for gas which never appeared to be turned on, and for lamplighters who were never paid. Then he was given something like a hundred thousand dollars' worth of presents on his marriage with Victor Emmanuel's daughter. At one time he was Minister of Algeria with a salary of 20 OOOdols. a year. In Bhort, this man, who is now uttering heroics about his disinterestedness, netted at least 8,000,000d015. by the reign of that dynasty which he did everything in his power to thwart. AGAINST THE KEVOLUTION. The present Government is evidently determined to crush, if it bo possible, tho revolutionary instinct in Frenchmen. It is a thankless, but one must confess a necessary, task. On the 4th of Septomber, 1870, penniless and unscrupulous men arrogated to themselves the supremo authority in several of the great towns, made illegal 'arrests and treated their

prisoners with such cruelty that in the indictments recently preferred against some of them it is described as "bodily torture." They expected, of course, that anything would be forgiven in time of revolution, and they had no reason to apprehend any unpleasant consequences from their acts under a Gambetta or a Thiers. The prosecutions which are now being conducted before councils of war were not instituted till MacMahon had been some months President ; but they are now being followed up with vigor, and the sentences will strike terror into the lawless for many a day to come. At Marseilles a hamster has been condemned to four years' imprisonment and five year's suspension ; one Savier, a jailer, to ten years' imprisonment, with hard labor, and ten years' police supervision ; another subordinate official to five years hard labor and ten years' supervision. This severity will not have been misplaced if it has the effect of preventing a few Bohemians from assuming temporary dictatorship when the next revolution breaks out. M. THIERS COMPLIMENTED. M. Thiers is once more on French soil, and was duly serenaded by his admirers at Nice the evening before last. The Nizzans are Italians and love a little excitement. They would have preferred serenading Patti, or, indeed, the injured Cora Pearl ; but, failing a lady, the eminent little man furnished a fair excuse for making a noise. They meant no harm, and would never do so much mischief if the authorities steadily refused to treat them seriously. EX-KINGS COMING TO THE DEMOCRACY. Two ex-Kings have taken houses in Paris for the winter—Francis I. of Naples, and George V. of Hanover, the latter of whom has just failed in the negotiations for the marriage of his son with Princess Thyra of Denmark. His Majesty will learn from the French journals much curious information about his own affairs, domestic as well as political.