and by so doing withdrew workmen from productive employments. To meet the expense of this undertaking and other chimeras it squandered the resources of the state, and was compelled to increase the taxes. The numerous projects for the spoliation of property caused capital to migrate, commercial credits to shrink, trade to perish, and enterprise to wither amid increasing fears. An inevitable consequence was increasing popular distress, swelling the clamor for the government to grant that direct relief which Socialists had taught the people to expect. Those unfortunate and misled people were starving, and their banners were inscribed with the ominous words, "bread or death." They had been reduced to this alternative by the government, and their desperation was made the instrument in the hands of demagogues to work out designs only frustrated by the steady valor of the people rallying to the support of their goverument, and the republic is apparently firm for the moment.

The finances of the French government continue, however, to be the chief cause of alarm. It is obvious that the triumph of any particular party in the government is matter of minor importance, if that party cannot obtain the means of carrying on the govern ment. Thus far the new minister appears to have opposed the singularly futile propositions of the old one, but has not produced any practicable plan of raising the means. The direct taxes for May were 22,222,400f. only, against 42,007,000 in April; and the additional 45 centimes levied by the provisional government is everywhere resisted, particularly in the Gironde, where an insurrection appears to have been excited by the attempt. ed collection of the tax. The octroi tax for Paris, or an income tax upon every article of consumption brought into the city from the country, was exceedingly unpopular and consequently unproductive. While the revenues so declined the expenses are fearfully increased, and the estimates are for 1848 as follows:

Diminution of receipts.
Increase of expense..

Apparent deficit....

.f.232,000,000

..634,000,000

..f.866,000,000

The minister calculated on 281,473,325f. from data shown to be erroneous-thus he calculates on 190,000,000f. from the 45 centimes tax, which will not give more than 60,000,000f. and his whole figure will be reduced to $150,000.000, leaving f.7 16,000,000 to be met, to which add treasury bills due in October 320,000,000f., and due savings banks depositors 284,000,000f., and the gross deficit is 1,320,000,000f. for the year, equal to $250,000,000 for one year! being the whole expense of the United States government for ten years. This awful prospect is amidst a state of affairs adverse to the payment of taxes. It is true the real republican party, composed of the shopkeepers, manufacturers, and men of property, have triumphed, and from that triumph may result continued peace and slowly returning trade and industry, such as may enable them to pay if they have the will to meet the great expenditure incurred. It is very obvious that under existing circumstances one of three things must be resorted to-direct taxation, loans, or paper money. The former is being attended with ill success, the second is impossible in the present state of the market, and the third has been rejected. It would seem, however, that it will become inevitable, and indeed as a mode of taxation in times of great public exigencies it is not objectionable. The question is whether it can be adopted; that is, whether sufficient confidence still exists to make it feasible.

Among the singular propositions of the Freuch government is that of M. Duclerc to take the insurance of all property into the hands of the government. The minister states the insurable property of France as follows:

The minister proposes to indemnify insurance companies and then compel the insurance of all houses and furniture, and make that on produce and goods optional. By this means he estimates that the state will derive an income of f.40,000,000, for which the state would become responsible for that vast amount of property. It is obvious that this proposition is simply a tax upon all descriptions of property, on condition that the state is responsible for its loss.

In March last there were 245,716,044f. commercial bills discounted by the Paris Bank; the amount is now reported at 114,431,757f., from which deduct 52,000,000 treasury bills, and there remains 62,000,000f. of commercial bills discounted in Paris, a reduction of five-sixths since February. The government is gradually absorbing all the means of the Bank.

The leading men of the French government since the Revolution of February, have very generally repudiated the idea of paper money, but the exigencies of the State are such as to make it evident on all sides that such a resort must become inevitable, and per haps for the interests of republicanism it may be for the best that it should be promptly resorted to. In the case of the French people the political difficulty which overwhelms them is of a financial character. Since 1830 the system of taxation has been constantly becoming more oppressive, until the means of one of the wealthiest states of Europe seemed to be exhausted in attempting to sustain an expenditure more profuse than that of any other existing government. This prodigality of outlay was the sole dependence of the Orleans dynasty. In achieving independence of monarchism, the leading good to be realized was relaxation of government expense aud a diminution of taxes, which are necessarily paid by the industrious, the ingenious, and the wealthy. If we now compare the budgets of past years, with that of the Provisional Government for 1848, we shall see how far the realization of this object has been attempted, The following are the aggregates of expense for several years :

The whole expenditure of the English government is $250,000,000, and of the United States $25,000,000. Now then the first year of the republic shows an increase of expense of 20 per cent. The practical change exists only in the fact that Louis Phillippe sup. ported 550,000 office holders, who sustained his government. Those men were put out it is asserted by "the people," and the socialists of both classes, Communists and Fourierites, claim that "the people," who are defined by Louis Blanc to be those whose only means is labor, are entitled to government support, that is, that the government must find them employ if it can, wages at any rate. Now it results that 550,000 dynastic office holders are displaced for at least an equal number of socialist idlers dependent on the new government. The great mass of the French people who produce its wealth, paid the office holders, and were now required to pay the idlers, at $50,000,000 more expense, because the working offices of the government must still be filled by competent persons. What has France gained by this exchange? Clearly nothing; she is only put in the way of gaining something. Now the government of Louis Phillipe fell because the real peo. ple of France could or would no longer support so wasteful and corrupt an expenditure. The new government without credit and at a moment of stagnation of trade and general alarm attempts to increase the direct taxes. This is clearly not the mode by which to make new institutions popular. The people saw the necessity of putting down the attempt of the socialists to pension the idlers and they triumphed. They have now the great difficulty of the finances to meet. Rigid economy is the first duty, but this is not promptly practicable, and paper money as a means of taxation is probably the best mode of supplying resources. The gradual and inevitable depreciation of the paper distributed its loss pretty equally among all classes, and lightens taxation on the industrious while it imposes upon the state creditor his proportion of the burdens of the state. The old con

tinental money of the United States is an example of the successful use of such an instrument in times of great national emergency. It carried the government through a dark period when direct taxation, as exemplified in the subsequent whiskey war, would have been fatal to the national union.

A bill has been introduced into the French Assembly to furnish a paper currency for France, in many respects like the free banking law of New York, as it originally stood. The bill proposes that the government in Paris should issue, as money, bills from $5 to $200, to be made a legal tender but inconvertible into specie, upon mortgages, of all real estate at three-fifths the value of the property, exclusive of mortgages. The loans to run for terms not over 15 years, and to bear 34 per ct. interest. Every 5 years a new valuation of the mortgaged property to be made. This is in fact a proposition to turn the government into an immense loan office; the bills of which, issued on all the real property of France, to be legal tender each in the arrondisement of the mortgaged property. The value of real property in France is nearly as follows:

11.000,000 proprietors...

Mortgages, report of Director of Domains..

Balance....

$4,500.000.000 2,065,000,000

$2,435,000,000

The new bill authorises to three-fifths this amount, or $1,461,000,000-a very respecta ble amount of paper money. If this should be carried into effect to one-tenth of its capacity only, France would be flooded with paper money, which would operate to the repudiation of the present debt and the discharge of all debts upon real estates-as thus; The Director General of Domains states that existing mortgages amount to $2,000,000,000 on a specie basis; if the holders of mortgaged property apply for government money to this extent and pay off old mortgages, they would then have afloat as much paper money as would make all other debts worthless. This paper money it is proposed to make a legal tender and inconvertible. Hence a moderate issue will sink its value rapidly. The same bill authorises the mortgager to pay off in paper or specie when he pleases. Hence for a little money he will soon clear his debt to the State. The proposition is one for general spoliation of creditors, public and private. But as the money is not to be issued by the State for its own expenses, it will aid the finances in no other way than by facili tating the collection of taxes and virtually repudiating the debt. The interest the State will draw from loans will be indeed a revenue, as thus: If $2,000,000,000 is loaned at 34 per cent. the State will derive $70,000,000 income, payable in this paper, which in such a volume would be of no value. A debt-ridden and tax-oppressed people like those of France must, sooner or later, acknowledge the utter bankruptcy, social and public, to which they have been reduced by a long series of bad governments, and which in fact is the source of all the evils which now afflict them.

The new minister, M. Goudchaux, on the 3d July abandoned most of the obnoxious propositions of his predecessor, and the confidence he inspired in connection with the apparent stability of affairs under Gen. Cavaignac had restored confidence to a considerable extent, causing business to revive both in Europe and England, and improving the price of securities.

It is the case that crops up to the present time promise great abundance, and as a consequence prices are lower. Hence all American produce is in England too low for profitable sales, while on the continent there is no credit to command consignments. The external trade of the country, therefore, presents a great contrast to that of last year. The import and export of the port of New-York for the fiscal year ending June 1848, were as follows:

IMPORTS AND EXPORTS, PORT OF NEW-YORK, FOR THE FISCAL YEAR.

It is apparent from this table, that as far as this port is concerned, there is an excess of exports this year over the last; and that this excess has arisen from the exports of specie, to an amount greater than the diminution which has taken place in the exportable value of produce. Hence it is apparent that there can be no commercial balance actually due abroad; more particularly when we consider that the amount of imports at this port has not been, actually, more than in the last year, as follows:

IMPORTS, PORT OF NEW-YORK FOR THE FISCAL YEAR.

This is an apparent rise of $9,098,000 upon the imports, but we believe that it has been very generally the case that the goods have been entered on foreign account, at rates very far in advance of what they have actually realized in the market. This loss on importation has diminished the sains to be paid out of the proceeds of produce sold abroad. The exports have also been of declining value, and have also to a greater extent than usual, been purchased here on foreign account. As compared with 1846, the aggregate imports and exports have been as follows:

Although the exports of the present year are less than for the last, yet they exceed even those of domestic goods by those of the last year of the old tariff of 1846, before the peculiar state of the English harvest gave such an extraordinary impulse to the business of 1847. The rates of exchanges at the close of the business of the past year, were downwards, until the discredit of English merchants swept from the active capital of our merchants large sums, depended upon as available for the discharge of claims of manufacturers there. There is nothing in these figures to cause uneasiness now, as to the future.

The results of this import table show that the revenne tariff has for the present fiscap year given $2,500 000 more money than was gathered from the operation of the tariff of 1842 in the fiscal year 1846, and $3,000 000 more than was obtained for the fiscal year 1847, in five months of which the tariff of 1842 was in operation. It will be observed

that while the importation of dutiable articles is this year over $20,000,000 in excess of last year, the aggregate imports are diminished only $9,000,000. The low grade of duties induced returns in a dutiable shape of the proceeds of the produce sold abroad, thus diminishing the receipts of free goods and specie. This amount of duties received at this port is probably the largest amount ever before gathered at any port of the United States. It is to be remembered that this amount of money represents a far larger amount of goods than usual, inasmuch as they have been purchased (particularly those imported in the last three months) at very low prices, induced by the peculiar state of affairs abroad. Those goods imported last fall and winter were also to a very considerable extent sent here on foreign account, and were actually paid for by the United States at a valuation much below that set forth in the import value, the difference between that and the amount of sales constituting a loss sustained by foreign merchants and manufacturers. Their disposition to send here to sell was much diminished in consequence. As, however, their consignments slacked up, the events in Europe offered inducements to our merchants to export specie for the purchase of those cheap goods. The exports of specie since March have, from this port, amounted to $5,300,000, but this demand has now fallen off because of growing scarcity of goods abroad through non-production.

The diminution of trade added to the immigration of capital has produced a demand for good stocks, and the loans negotiated by the state of New York and the federal gov. ernment alluded to in our last, have improved in price under foreign purchases. The U. S 6 per cent stock sells in London at 96 a 97. The great security and handsome dividends payable on these stocks, is a temptation to invest, independently of the want of security which attaches in a greater or less degree to the stocks of other governments-more particularly to those of France. The Three Per Cents had fallen to 45, and the Fives to 63. It will be observed, probably for the first time in the history of nations, a United States Stock sells higher in London, in open market, than that of France. The French Threes without the dividend are 45, equal to 90 for the United States Sixes, which sell at 94. The fact that the two great houses of Rothschild and Barings have become interested in pushing sales, is a guarantee that the market for U. States securities will widen. When we reflect, however, that for every $1,000 of this stock sent abroad, $2,000 must be returned, it is not prospectively a profitable operation, more particularly that the money borrowed is producing nothing.

The whole amount of the United States debt is as follows:

The interest on all these stocks is payable in Jan. and July, except that of the Mexican indemnity, which is paid on the 10th of Aug, and of Feb. in each year. The return of the army will bring a large amount of land warrants or bounty loans upon the market. Thus, nearly all the soldiers are entitled to a warrant for 160 acres of land, which, at the minimum government price, is worth $200. Congress authorizes in lieu of this warrant, at the option of the claimant, a "bounty loan" stock for $100, bearing 6 per cent. interest, and redeemable at the pleasure of the government. If the number of returning soldiers should reach