press at least as hardly on national resources as before. Meanwhile, as the relative prosperity of different classes fluctuates from time to time, the direct taxation which they have to bear presses on them more severely at such periods, and it becomes the difficult task of the financier in a long-settled country not increasing uniformly in prosperity, but yet called on to bear greater fiscal burdens, to adjust his requirements to the power of individuals to meet them. A tax long established is borne with greater patience than a new one. Both in England and France the Finance Minister has now quite a different problem to deal with from what he had when prosperity was advancing with leaps and bounds.

The country is frequently congratulated on the great reduction made in the public debt. And that a considerable reduction should be made in this is most desirable. But how do the figures stand? We quote, with respect to the National Debt, from the return in the 'Statistical Abstract,' which gives the total amount, including the estimated capital of the Terminable Annuities, computed in 3 per cent. stock at par :

If we go no further than this, there appears to be a respectable diminution. The amount in 1884 includes, it should also be mentioned, the cost of the purchase of the Suez Canal Shares, which were a remunerative outlay. But while we look on this picture, we must remember there is another one also to be examined. Local debt is just as much a charge as Imperial debt, though the incidence may not fall exactly on the same individuals. And how does the account for local debt stand? We will take, as nearly as possible, the corresponding dates :Loans raised by Local Authorities, England and Wales.

We have kept our comparison quite to recent years, and we are fully aware that much of local outlay is for remunerative purposes. It is, however, most unlikely that as much as threefifths of the increase in local debt yields a remunerative return. Vol. 161.-No. 322. Even

2 E

Even if it did, the growth of non-productive local debt would fully balance the diminution of non-productive Imperial debt.

Before our fiscal system can be brought to anything like a satisfactory condition, the whole subject of local indebtedness and local taxation must be considered side by side with the requirements of the Empire. Local taxation is, however, beyond the purview of Mr. Dowell's book, and we feel as if we owed Mr. Wright and Mr. Hobhouse an apology for giving their useful work no further notice than this. Local administration is at present a labyrinth in which even the most wary are apt to go astray, and we must not enter on the subject on this

occasion.

The intricacy of local administration, however, brings back again before us the point which we have already remarked on twice before the curious tendency of all public finance to become involved and entangled with the process of time. Both Pitt and Peel did yeoman's service in clearing the ground in their own day. Local taxation now calls for the financier who will perform the same duty.

We are

These remarks, however, must draw to a close. rapidly approaching a time when the recent great additions to the constituencies will be accompanied by a great alteration in the classes by whom political power will be swayed. Concurrently with that alteration it is quite possible that heavier taxes on capital may be proposed. We would warn those who may be inclined to press that form of taxation beyond its proper limit, that the imposing a tax does not create the power to bear it. The effect of the incidence of taxation often differs very greatly from what appears on the surface. A sound and very homely proverb tells the fate of the goose which laid the golden eggs, and of the goose's owner. Over-severe taxation on capital, or taxes which ultimately fall on labour, would be followed by the same results to the permanent injury of the country. We have shown how entirely the taxes intended to be progressive and graduated in character have failed in their object. Popular leaders may decline to accept this obvious but unpalatable truth, but a bitter experience will show that the truth can never be safely disregarded. Subjects, which require not a party but a scientific treatment, can only be successfully dealt with by being approached in a scientific spirit. Meanwhile, for a safe rule of thumb, the best financier and the most prudent statesman at the present time will be he who reflects oftenest on that motto, too seldom practised, 'Magnum vectigal est parsimonia.’

ART.

ART. IV.-1. Les Origines de la France Contemporaine. Par H. Taine. La Révolution. 3 vols. Paris, 1878-1885. Translated by John Durand. 3 vols. London, 1881-1885. 2. Mémoires et Correspondance pour servir à l'histoire de la Révolution Française. Par Mallet-du-Pan. 2 vols. Paris,

1851.

3. Correspondance inédite avec la Cour de Vienne, 1794-1798. Par Mallet-du-Pan. Edited by A. Michel. Edited by A. Michel. 2 vols. Paris, 1884.

'I

KNOW but three modes of living in human society. Every man must either be a beggar, a thief, or a paid State-functionary. The "man of property" is but a first-class functionary of the kind. What is commonly spoken of as "his private fortune" is really nothing else than the wages paid him by society for distributing to others, through the expenses of his daily life, a large share of his goods.'

These words are not, as might be supposed, the words of some orator of the time when the revolutionary movement was at its zenith. They were spoken by Mirabeau on the 10th of August, 1789, and may serve to show how early subversive ideas had gained currency-largely through the philanthropy of those who were the first to suffer from them.

The fashionable pessimism of our day might seek to justify itself by appealing to the irony of human life even more than to its absolute pains. There is a deep pathos in evils which result from benevolent actions inspired by what appear to be the bestfounded hopes. Pessimism has also sought to justify itself by the consideration, that evil necessarily results from that which gives man his supreme dignity-namely, his self-consciousness. Too unlike the brute, which ne'er 'reflects that this is I,' to be safely guided by instinct; too like the brute to be secure from the dominance of appetite, he is doubly exposed to error, and it is the knowledge that the area of self-conscious fallibility is ever extending in a world elsewhere the product of the harmonious interplay of unconscious forces, which mainly supports the arguments of Von Hartmann. For language, poetry, art, science, political organizations, and religious systems, were all first evolved by man's unconscious efforts-almost as the spider weaves his web and as ants and bees congregate in their social forms of life. But as man's intellectual powers advanced, first one and then another sphere of his activity became the arena of deliberate intention and reflective effort-generally with practical deterioration as its result. It may be said that Adam's fall is the symbol of a process which ever recurs in the great drama

2 E 2

drama of human life. As often as man's eyes become freshly opened by again eating of the tree of self-conscious knowledge, so often does he fall into some relative temporary inferiority. It is but temporary, for the fall is not without the prospect of redemption and the attainment of a higher state, however long and painful may be the efforts needed to attain it.

These reflections especially apply to the calamitous accompaniments of that great step in human self-consciousness, the French Revolution. Many as had been the antecedent aspirations after an 'ideal state,' then for the first time did a whole nation, in the van of civilization, make the reconstruction of society from its foundation on certain principles,' its selfconscious, deliberate aim.

6

The work first named in the list which heads this article is devoted to the elucidation of the causes of the great catastrophe, and to the setting forth of its less-known consequences; and incidental illustrations are afforded by the works of Mallet-duPan and Lord Malmesbury. Some of our readers may be tempted to think that they know enough already about that great political convulsion, and certainly there has been no dearth of explanations: It was all due to the weakness and indecision of the King'; 'its excesses were the result of the treachery of the King and Queen and the dread of foreign invasion; it was the inevitable recoil from antecedent despotism'; 'it was the consequence of the oppression of the poor by the nobility, and of the ignorant intolerance of a corrupt church'; it was the bursting forth of a new and vigorous social system which had formed itself beneath the old, like the moth within the stem of the chrysalis'; 'it arose from the fact that almost all the land was in the hands of large proprietors succeeding each other by primogeniture, or else was held in mortmain'; 'it was occasioned by the burthens imposed on the occupiers of land by lords of manors, and was, in truth, but a large, tumultuous movement to effect the enfranchisement of copyholds.'

So vast a convulsion as that initiated in 1789 could never, of course, have taken place but for the fact, that many independent circumstances happened then and there to concur in its production. No doubt most of the above suggested causes did cooperate, though we must recollect that the land was much subdivided before 1789, as also that De Tocqueville has once for all shown that, in its essentials, the new system was an exaggeration rather than a reversal of the system which had preceded it. But it will be some time yet before all the causes of the movement are fully known, and thanks are due to M. Taine for having given very valuable aid towards their elucidation.

In the first place, he depicts the social system upon which such unexpected ruin so suddenly came-its nobility, its clergy, and its urban and rural citizens. As in a forest of old growth, the underwood is of comparatively little worth, the more valuable product being accumulated in the larger trees, so in the venerable French social system, yet almost intact in 1789, all that was of the greatest value, intellectually, æsthetically, and morally-all the choicest products of an ancient civilizationhad become concentrated in the Nobility, the Clergy, and what were called the 'Notables.' It is true that many opulent and illustrious noble families had ceased to render services to the State, in proportion to the consideration they enjoyed. There were lords and ladies of the Court, worldly bishops and abbés, and drawing-room lawyers, who were acquainted with little save the arts of dexterous solicitation, graceful manners, and prodigal expenditure. An injudicious system of culture had converted them into merely ornamental trees, uselessly cumbering much ground at large cost, and producing much more flowers than fruit. Nevertheless those flowers were exquisite. At that time the great world of France exhibited a refined politeness and an exquisite polish, the like of which had never been seen before and has not yet been regained. As M. Taine well says:

'When such refinement exists not only in the drawing-room but in the family circle, in the conduct of business and in the very streets; when it characterizes the intercourse not only of friends but of superiors with their inferiors, with their servants and even with a stranger encountered by chance, then it brings to human life both dignity and sweetness. A delicate observance of what is deemed fitting conduct becomes a second, and a better, nature; for that internal code, which governs every detail of speech and action, teaches self-respect as well as consideration for others.'-Vol. iii. p. 399.

Not only was intellectual, and especially literary, cultivation then carried to an extreme, but what rich men then most feared was the reputation of being wanting in 'sensibility.' An exaggerated tenderness marred the administration of justice, and rendered those who had force at their command, incapable of using it adequately for the repression of crime and outrage, thus giving a fatal licence to revolt. These nobles still showed the same refined culture when they became victims. In prison, while awaiting the scaffold, they dressed with care and conversed with their wonted wit and grace. But, besides some two or

* People who occupied a prominent position independently of the Noblessefor the most part in the towns.

three