to pay under the emperor. We will quote the statement from a work entitled "France: her Governmental, Administrative, and Social Organization," published in 1844:

During the empire,

During the restoration,

544,000,000 950,000,000

During the present government, 1,360,000,000

Thus, in the fifteen years of the Consulate and of the Empire of Napoleon, when France was constantly engaged in wars, with the exception of the short peace of Amiens, the total amount of contributions paid by the eighty-six departments was 8,160,000,000 francs; in the fifteen years of the Restoration the same departments paid 14,250,000,000 francs; and in the thirteen years of the reign of the citizen king, they have paid 14,210,000,000 francs.

That comes down only to 18443; continued to 1848, as subsequent to 1844 the expense was much increased, the comparison would be still more unfavorable to the government of Louis Philippe. M. Michel Chevalier, writing in 1848, said, "The whole naval and military expense under Bonaparte in 1802 was 315 million francs; and the military and naval expense in 1846, under

expense of the Ministry of the Interior was 740,273f; it is now, when the number of departments is only 86, threefold. Under the Empire, there were in the ministry four chiefs of departments; in 1819, six; in 1823, seven; in 1824, eight; and now (1845) M. Duchatel has under his orders an private secretary, three

under-secretary of state, a

directors, thirteen heads of departments, and sections, and thirty-nine chief clerks. The number of officials has increased more rapidly since the revolution (1830.) It amounts to a fourth more than at the period of the Restoration. The finance ministry, which in 1830 had 59,700 officials, has now more than that number by 12,890. The several ministerial offices in Paris alone employed in 1830, 2,539 officials, with salaries of 8,836,000f.; and in 1844, 3,060, with salaries of 9,962,800f.: or the administration of Paris alone cost 1,126,500f. more in 1844 than in 1830.*

It is well observed by M. Passy, "that the effect of every revolution is double. It creates increased expenditure, and reduces receipts." But we may almost be permitted to doubt whether such acute and terrible squandering as that of M. Ledru Rollin and his associates, which, generating great alarm and confusion, must soon come to an end, is on the whole more injurious than the continued and chronic increase of expenditure and debt, such as characterized the last ten years of the government of the Citizen King.

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cept 1806," he adds, no year of the reign of Napoleon, till 1811, exceeded, for military and naval purposes, the expense of 1846." But the increase of expense, for the civil administration, appears to have been greater than that for the military. At least, the number of persons employed by the government is astonishingly large. The cost is said by the author of France to be 18,462,1241. Mr. Herries, on the 16th ult., called the public attention to the fact stated by Mr. Porter, that the number of persons in the service of our

of France. The Times, for example, speaks of the "expansion of the national resources under Louis Philippe;" but if any such expansion had taken place, it would have shown itself by an increase of the people. Whenever and wherever national resources increase, the population increases. Fully analyzed, it may, indeed, be said that there is no other test of prosperity than their continual and permanent increase. They will always breed fully up to the means of subsistence, and if these means be abundant, the increase will

1835, from 27,365 to 23,500, and their salaries at the latter period was 2,780,000l. The number of such persons employed in France was, in 1844, not less than 900,000. Including the police, the number was 992,000, and adding the military, the government of France may be said to comprise 1,392,000 persons, or about 1-26th part of the whole population. The number of persons employed in the government of the two countries does not admit of an actual comparison between England and France, because the bulk of our municipal and county magistrates and officers are either not appointed by the crown or do not receive

of immense imports and exports, particularly exports; but how much of them were sent to Algeria to supply the wants of the army, and were paid for out of the government expenditure, did not appear in the returns. Certainly, too, we know, from authentic sources, that while the imports and exports were assuming, at least on paper, an appearance of expansion, the shipping of France, one index of prosperity, was declining. M. Michel Chevalier tells us that the number of great ships-ships of three hundred tons and upwards-had fallen off in nine years, betwixt 1837 and 1846, 21 per cent., or from 300 to 237.

persons employed in administering the government of France is much greater than is employed in administering the government of England. A German writer estimates them at fifteen times as many. As a specimen of the increase in France, we may quote that of the Ministry of the Inte

M. Blanqui, in his recent work, Sur des Classes Ouvrieres, referred to in the Economist on June 2d, complains loudly of the decay of manufactures in France, and explains at some length the cause of the decline, and the deterioration in the condition of the workmen. We have on several * Müller's Statistiches Handbach, for 1845.

occasions quoted from M. Thiers, Mr. M'Culloch, and others, statements of the alarming number of actual paupers and of persons scarcely able to subsist in France. We have shown, on the authority of Mr. M'Culloch, that not only is the agriculture of France extremely bad, in relation to that of England-not only does one acre in England yield considerably more than two acres in France-not only do two husbandmen in England supply a surplus of food for four other individuals, while in France two husbandmen only supply a surplus to feed one other person-but, bad as agriculture is in France, it is becoming worse. The number of cattle and horses is falling off, and the consumption of butcher's meat throughout the country is declining. This sad condition does not date from the Revolution of 1848; all these facts relate to France in the palmy and prosperous days of Louis Philippe, and indicate, with unerring certainty, that the general malaise which M. Blanqui notices as heralding that great storm, was a more effective cause of the revolution than the writing and talking of demagogues.

We may confirm this general view by a quotation from Le Libre Echange of February 13, 1848. Unfortunately, M. Frederic Bastiat's calm and thoughtful wisdom was not appreciated by either the bigoted and spendthrift coercionists, who insisted on carrying out their own system by forts and armies, or their antagonists, the republicans,

who ran to the other extreme, and, in the fury of their self-will, made a sweeping and a devastating change.

Without speaking (said M. Bastiat) of the embarrassment of our finances of which the principal source is the application of those ideas which form the system of protection a painful languor affects all the branches of the national industry. Agriculture vegetates, manufactures languish, our mercantile marine dies out. Some particular branches of industry suffer more than others; such, for example, as that of the wine-growers, who complain incessantly, and with reason; such as the linen manufacture, which suffers not less, though it complains not, lest it should advocate freedom of trade, which can alone save it. But it may be said that the evil is general. There is not at present a single branch of industry of which the condition can be praised. It is a remarkable thing, in fact, that the distress (malaise) which afflicts France extends with double intensity to all its foreign possessions.

with progressively increasing slowness-namely, in the first 11 years, 9 per cent.; in the next 9 years, less than 6 per cent.; and in 7 years, from 1835 to 1842, 3 1-10th per cent. only. According to the official returns analyzed by M. Legoyt, (and quoted by Mr. Mill,) the increase of the population, which from 1801 to 1806 was at the rate of 1.28 per cent. annually, averaged only 0.47 per cent. from 1806 to 1831; from 1831 to 1836 it averaged 0-60 per cent.; and from 1836 to 1841, 0.41 per cent.; and from 1841 to 1846, 0.68 per cent.; but M. Legoyt is of opinion that the population was "understated in 1841, and the increase between that time and 1846 consequently overstated; and that the great increase during the period was something intermediate between the last two averages, and not more than 1 in 200."

The extraordinary fact then is, that the French population, who were not reconciled to the waste of life and treasure which took place under Bonaparte by his splendid victories, then actually increased in numbers, and, we must believe, increased in wealth and material well-being, much faster than under the elder Bourbons, and faster still than under Louis Philippe. It is plain from these facts that, instead of society expanding rapidly in France, in which alone is health and safety, it was coming to a dead lock before the revolution of February; and such is the fatal mistake of the system there followed-such the error of their creed, or the perversity of their politicians that the course since pursued has terribly increased the mischief. "By far the strangest feature in M. Passy's statement," says the Times, " is the total absence of any real and positive proposition for the reduction of the public expenditure." The system, of which the principal features were an increase of expenditure and debt, with no increase, if not a positive decrease, of resources, is to be continued and aggravated. M. Passy, like his colleagues, regards an extension of the functions of government and of course an increase of expense-as a necessary consequence of the increase of civilization. According to the French theory, as men become more enlightened, moral, and wise, they are less to be trusted, and require more government.

We do not regard ourselves as over prosperous in England; we complain much and justly of the pressure of population, but in 40 years, when the French increased only 211⁄2 per cent., our population increased 100 per cent., or four times as much as that of France; and, what is of more importance, it has increased, not in a retarding, but in an accelerating ratio. Between 1801 and, 1811, the increase was 18:50 per cent.; between 1831 and 1841 it was 28.24 per cent. The population of the United States, undoubtedly the most prosperous country of the globe, increases still faster than our population, though we come nearly next to them; but the population of France, with two

lation of the civilized world. A population that does not increase is not prosperous; and we may find a clue to many of the disasters of France in the wonderful disproportion between the increase account, and that Great Britain would bear the brunt of the contest.

From the Montreal Herald.

CANADIAN INDEPENDENCE AND ANNEXΑΤΙΟΝ.

THERE are a considerable number of persons, who, while they admit all the evils of our present condition for who does not admit what each feels in his own individual case?-are yet indisposed to take that bold and decided step, which appears to us the only probable remedy. To these persons the nostrum of a federal union with the sister

We say, then, that a federal union and independence are inseparable; and we proceed to show how much less advantageous that arrangement would be, than the union with our southern neighbors.

In

The expenses of government in case of a federal union would be divided into two parts, that which belongs to the local or state government, and that which belongs to the federal government. Canada at present we pay only the first set of expenses. Great Britain pays all those other charges, which in the United States are borne by the federal government, and would have to be borne by the federal government in case of a union with the provinces.

a better course, more consistent with old ideas and feelings, than that of an incorporation of our fortunes with those of the neighboring States. This opinion originates in honest, manly devotion to the country of our birth to the desire still entertained to preserve the name and condition of British subjects. It is, therefore, respectable, and to be respected; but is nevertheless founded in mistake. We have said that these persons lean to the idea of a federal union of the British North American provinces, with or without independence of Great Britain; for among those who have not fully considered the subject, there is a vagueness of perception which prevents some of them from seeing distinctly that a federal union can be nothing, unless it be accompanied by independence. But it is easy to show that this is the fact; and that, therefore, to advocate such a plan is also to advocate a separation from the mother country.

A federation is a number of states, each managing its own local affairs as we do at present; but united by the tie of a general and metropolitan government, which arranges, for the entire group, all that regards their external relations. That is to say, the federal government determines all questions of peace and war, and, of consequence, all questions as to the extent and employment of the army and navy. It takes charge, also, of all diplomatic communications with foreign powers; all negotiations and treaties; and all restrictions, customs, or other taxes imposed upon foreign commerce. Now, unless there be these foreign relations, there can be no federal government, for the simple reason that the federal government would have no functions-would have nothing to do. If we should establish a federation to-morrow, in order to find some business for the general government to do, in order to prevent such an institution from becoming as useless a mockery as that of the governor-generalship, under the present system, we should have to obtain from Great Britain the right to treat with independent nations as an independent state. The cost of maintaining the army and navy would be necessarily thrown upon us, as a

of sources of expense, which we should incur by annexation; it is easy to show that these expenses would be vastly greater in the former case than in the latter. We have two millions of people in British North America. Joined to the United States we should form a nation of about twentyfour millions. But the two millions, in order to the maintenance of a thorough system of diplomatic relations abroad, would require as many ambassadors and consuls as would be necessary for the twenty-two. The two millions would have to go to all the cost of paying for a president, instead of paying the eleventh part of the cost of one such functionary for the twenty-two. The two millions must keep up a great variety of other civil establishments in the same way and out of their own resources, instead of sharing the burden with ten times their own number. Lastly, the army and navy must either be manifestly useless, or it must be equally powerful with that army with which it would probably have to contend in case of war.

The nation with which the North American Union would have to dread collision would clearly be the United States, therefore our army would either be utterly incapable of affording us protection, or it must be as numerous as theirs. Two millions of population, then, must go to the same expense as twenty millions; or else waste all the outlay in useless form, whereas by a union with the twenty millions, which would diminish the necessary cost of the present military establishments maintained by the larger population, the same protection might be had for a tithe of the money.

So far, then, it is evident, that the items of increased expenses, rendered necessary by a change, would be incalculably greater in the case of a federal union than in that of annexation. Let us see what would be the advantages. The great advantages to be looked for in either case, arise from enlarged markets for our produce an increased field for our future industrial enterprises. Now a federal union of the British provinces would add, if they were all customers, only five hundred thou