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for fidelity in keeping engagements produces confidence, and confidence is the basis of public credit.

Doubtless, nothing would be more easy than to postpone indefinitely the extinction of the arrears, and to add their capital to that of the inscribed debt. But, it is not to be concealed, that this compulsive consolidation does not release the treasury, since the trea

and anterior to that year, has been irrevocably fixed by the law of the 20th of March 1813, according to the provisions of article 7 to the 2d of that law. All that remains due for those fiscal terms is to be inscribed in the great book of the public debt. This principle has been uniformly adhered to in the measures devised for the execution of the law respecting the finances of 1814. And the law of the 20th March 1813 having open-sury, in such case, only makes a ed for the payment of those claims, a credit in annuities which is not exhausted, it is enough for me here to refer to the rules which are applicable to them.

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The question of the mode of payment of the arrears was long discussed. It has been decided by the law of the 23d September. I might abstain from a new examination. But opinions supported by the authority of experience and by the weight of talent are in opposition to the principles of this law. I deem it useful to bestow some attention on them. There is one principle not to be contested:The state owes to its creditors the full payment of their claims; and this principle is dictated not only by the conscience, but likewise by the interest of every government;

nominal payment, exerts its authority to commute the debt already due and demandable, of its creditor, for an indeterminate engagement, and thus but too often places him under the alternative either to sell with loss, or to keep, without hope of reimbursement, a depreciated stock. In adding new annuities to those which already exist, the compulsory consolidation attacks not only the interests of the man who, in the expectation of a fair profit, has lent to the state his time, his industry, and his capital; but, contrary to the faith of contracts, it reduces ancient debts; it envelops in one common empoverishment, the holder of the demandable, and the owner of the inscribed debt, it violates, with respect to them both, the sacred rights of property.

And what is the result of this operation?

The honest contractor, the capitalist, shuns a government upon whose good faith he cannot depend; the public service falls into bad hands; ruinous contracts swell the public expenses; the burdens of the people increase, and the state becomes a prey to all the disorders inseparable from the dishonesty of which it has given the first example.

In other times ministers who were precluded by absolute orders

from a choice of means, creditors | hundred thousand hectares the sale who were placed under the necessity either to suffer a total loss, or to subscribe to a reduction of their claims, may have agreed to such an operation. But it belongs to the religious loyalty of your majesty to pursue a different course.

No, sire; at a time when the deficit in the receipts of 1814 and 1815 compels us to add to the arrears, 235 millions of payments which remain to be made for those two years; at a time when new treaties will increase the inscribed debt, and as an effect of these same treaties, we shall have a foreign competition in our market, fitted to exert a dangerous influence on our credit, I will not propose to your majesty a mode of relieving the treasury so contrary to justice and to the public interests. The law of the 23d September has laid down the principles: we must remain faithful to them.

The events which have taken place, since that law was enacted, might, no doubt, afford pretences to circumscribe its concessions, to postpone the epoch of reimbursement, perhaps to reduce the interests. But those events, in altering the situation of the debtor, have not diminished the rights of the creditors.

These rights remain the same: They have lost nothing of their validity; they rest on the public faith, on the word of your majesty, and what minister could dare to propose to you to violate such guarantees?

However, in order to accomplish the object of the law of the 23d September, it is indispensable to replace the 70 millions which were to have been deducted from the receipts of 1815, and devoted to the payment of the arrears. I ask authority to carry as far as four

of national forests; and in order to facilitate the operation, I propose that the bonds of the treasury shall be admissible in payment of the price of those forests, and of the estates of the communes, with the condition of paying one fifth in cash.

This measure will deprive the creditors of none of the advantages which were secured to them. On the contrary it will extend, it will complete their security. They will have the option to wait for the reimbursement of their bonds at the time at which they become due, to cause them, if they prefer it, to be inscribed on the grand livre, the great book of the public debt. They will have, moreover, the advantage of investing them either directly, in personal acquisitions, or indirectly, by selling them to the purchaser who may be in need of them, in order to pay the value of the portion of the national forests he may wish to buy.

It is very essential not to confound the operations which have taken place under the last government with that which we now propose. When, in countries wrested by the force of arms from their legitimate sovereigns, the conquered domains were offered for sale, the rescriptions, delegations, and other stock received in payment of those domains, of necessity depreciated, because the investment of the stock was compulsory, because remote estates, the value of which was not known, could suit but a small number of individuals, and because the mode of the original acquisition, the violence of conquest-diminished stiil more, in their estimation, the value of those estates.

Such is the character of our operation that, by means of the

sury, and were, for the most part, diverted entirely from their ostensible and proper destination.

condition imposed upon the pur-ceeds were deposited in the treachasers to pay one fifth in specie, it will be in the power of the treasury to keep up the credit of the present stock, since every bond admitted will carry with it a provision for the redemption of the others.

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In less difficult times, I will have the honour to lay before your majesty the new regulations which circumstances may warrant with respect to the additional cents. I can go no farther, for the present, than propose to your majesty, in favour of the departments, the imposition of five centimes in proportion to the wealth of each one, the produce of which, with the approbation of the minister of the interior, shall be employed in expenses of local utility.

The last government had granted likewise to the general councils of the departments the right of voting these centimes; but the pro

This malversation will not reappear under the healing government of your majesty. The produce of the centimes shall be deposited in the sinking fund. This deposit shall be voluntary and sacred. The funds will be held at the disposal of the prefects, will be employed immediately according to their directions, and the interest on the same will be paid up to the very moment when the sinking fund shall have reimbursed the capital. The departments will thus enjoy an advantage which they could not have obtained, had the sums thus raised, remained inactive in the local treasury of each.

This arrangement may be extended to the ordinary and extraordinary centimes which the several communes are authorised to levy, for their own particular expenses, when those expenses are not to take place immediately, or do not require the whole of the sums appropriated to them. The profits which the communes will receive from the salutary deposit of this capital in the sinking fund, will increase their resources, and reduce by so much the sums which they might be obliged to raise.

Experience has proved that some provisions of the law of the year 7, in stamps and registration, are susceptible of amendment. The prin cipal object is to remedy with respect to certain acts the inequality of the proportional duty, and thus to re-establish the unity of principle which ought to regulate the collection of taxes.

The custom-house duties were valued at a clear revenue of 25 millions in the budget of 1815. It

would have exceeded this sum, had it not been for the events of the month of March. The invasion of the territory has broken, on several points, the line of the customhouses, disorganized the service, interrupted the collections, and favoured smuggling. Order begins to be re-established; the provisions of the last treaties will contribute to maintain it; but the causes which have diminished the proceeds of 1815 will not be altogether without influence in the proceeds of

1816.

The tariff of the custom-house has been revised. Several articles not before included in it have been taxed. The new duties are moderate and ought to be so, because it is chiefly with respect to custom-house duties, that taxation ought to stop at that very point, beyond which it would be an inducement to fraud, would prevent consumption, and discourage industry. I believe, that owing to these new duties, and some addition to the former, this branch of revenue may give, for 1816, a net sum of 40 millions.

I value at 35 millions the proceeds of the duty on salt. This duty fixed at first by the law of the 24th April 1806 at 2 décimes per kilogramme, raised afterwards to 4 décimes by a decree of the 11th of November 1813, was reduced to 3 by the law of the 17th December 1814.

Your majesty could have wished to re-establish the first of these rates in 1816. You had cherished this hope. You have been disappointed. In more fortunate times your majesty may realize it. The people may safely rest on your paternal solicitude for their relief, and on your anxiety to accelerate the epoch of that relief.

VOL. I.

The other indirect taxes are valued at 147 millions. They had been valued in 1815 at only 90 millions. This difference of 57 millions arises principally from the new duties which are to be established. The indirect tax by the variety of its combinations, and above all owing to this peculiar property which it has of merging itself in the price of the article, and of identifying itself with the enjoyments or the wants of the consumer, has, over every other tax, an advantage, which is no longer to be contested. Besides, we have not the choice of resources. Direct taxes are carried to the maximum, and the receipts and expenses cannot be equalized but by indirect taxes.

The law of finance which I submit to the approbation of your majesty, includes several provisions which regulate these new duties, and which will improve the collection of the duties already laid.

The improvement will be, I hope, particularly manifest in the mode of collecting the duty on liquors. It had been valued at 60 millions in the budget of 1815, and probably will produce no more than 50. This difference between the anticipated and the real receipt does not impeach the accuracy of the calculations which served as a basis to the estimate. It has been the unavoidable consequence of circumstances.

The law of the 8th of December, 1814, had wisely regulated all the provisions intended to secure the entire collection of the sum carried in the budget. It was not unreasonable to suppose that the proceeds would exceed our hopes. The old mode of presentation was maintained, but the law had carefully removed all that could recall arbitrary forms.

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A bill has been prepared to modify some provisions of our legislation, concerning tobacco. Experience has pointed out the utility of the amendments suggested. They afford more freedom to the cultivation of tobacco. They facilitate for the planters, the means of getting it off to advantage, either by a sale to the royal farm of tobacco, or by exportation to a foreign country, and in this twofold respect, reconcile, I believe, upon principles of justice, the convenience of the consumer, the encouragements due to agriculture, and the interests of the treasury.

made this year for the contribution of 700 millions to the allies.

130 millions for the pay and maintenance of the one hundred and fifty thousand men left in France by them; and—

A fund of 4,500,000 francs, for contingent expenses, and particularly, for the reimbursements to be made in compliance with the 19th article of the convention of the 20th November.

The expenditure of the several departments of government amounted, in 1814, to 565 millions. The budget of 1815, carries it to 564 millions. It is reduced in the budget of 1816, to 338,500,000 francs. Not being able to increase the receipts, we have been compelled to diminish the expenses. The payments to be made for the inscribed debt, for the war contri

The produce of the post office, of the lottery, of the salt works in the East, and of the several other branches, is valued at 29 millions. It is about the sum at which it was valued in 1815. The extraordinary receipts con- bution, the stipend and maintesist :

Of an advance on the deposits in the way of security made by notaries, &c. which will produce 50 millions.

Of a deduction of 13 millions from the salaries paid by the treasury; and

Of the 10 millions which your Majesty has deigned to relinquish out of the civil list.

It was not enough for your Majesty to impose upon yourself this sacrifice. You have regulated yourself the application of the funds which are to result from it. You have expressed a wish that these funds be particularly employed in repairing the calamities of war in those departments which have been its theatre.

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nance of foreign troops, the interest of the notarial securities, and other expenses which are susceptible neither of reduction nor of adjournment, have been placed, on the first line, in the presumed revenue of 1816. Those branches being secured, the sum which remained to be disposed of, has been divided between the several departments of government in a proportion conformable to the importance of their demands. From this state of things it may possibly result that some expenses which ought to have been incurred in 1816, will be adjourned to 1817, and this observation applies more particularly, to the department of

war.

The army has been disbanded; and, I may, perhaps, be allowed to observe, that, notwithstanding the embarrassments of the treasury, and the extreme pressure of circumstances, the arrears of pay

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