FRANC I :. 





Jan. 1, 1874, into a supplementary convention, 

 whereby the coinage of their five-franc pieces was 

 limited to a certain amount for each nation. When 

 {jold disappeared from circulation at a rapid rate, 

 notwithstanding this restriction, they entered into 

 a further convention on Nov. 5, 1878, whereby tin- 

 coinage of five-franc pieces was suspended altogether 

 until authorized by the unanimous consent of the 

 contracting parties. This provision was continued 

 in force by the convention of Nov. 6, 1885, with a 

 modifying clause authorizing any member of the 

 union to resume the (.ninago of legal-tender silver 

 on condition that it will redeem in gold all of its 

 silver that circulates in the other states of the 

 union. The Bank of France, which has a capital 

 of 182,500,000 francs, has the exclusive privilege of 

 emitting bank notes, which are protected by re- 

 serves of gold and silver, loans on securities and 

 public funds, and loans made to the Government. 

 The law of Jan. 25, 1893, raised the limit of autho- 

 rized emissions from 3.500.000,000 francs to 4,000,000,- 

 000 francs. The notes are legal tender to any amount, 

 and are redeemable in coin, unless in a time of 

 crisis the Government should give them forced 

 currency. The charter of the bank has been re- 

 newed many times. The present one expires on 

 Dec. 31, 1897. The money in circulation in France 

 in 1894 was estimated to be 4.000,000.000 francs of 

 gold. 2,000.000,000 of silver five-franc-picces, 300.- 

 000,000 francs of small silver, and 3,458,000,000 

 francs of bank notes. 



Constitutional Crisis. When M. Bourgeois as- 

 sumed office he rejected the support of the So- 

 cialists, relying on the acceptance of his Eadical 

 programme, with necessary modifications by the 

 Moderates. When he made known his reduced 

 programme in January he no longer denounced 

 socialistic ideas, but rejected the aid of the Rallied 

 Republicans, leaving the Socialists to vote for him 

 without repudiating their principles. The income 

 tax to be incorporated in the budget was the main 

 feature of the ministerial programme. The Cabi- 

 net proposed exemption of 2,500 francs: 1 per cent. 

 tax on all over that amount up to 5.000 francs; 2 

 per cent, on the next 5.000 francs, or part thereof : 

 3 per cent, between 10.000 and 20.000 francs ; 4 per 

 cent, between 20.000 and 50.000 francs ; and 5 per 

 cent, on all above 50.000 francs. There was an 

 abatement ranging up to 50 per cent, for large 

 families. By way of a set-off the house tax was to 

 be abolished, freeing 6.500,000 persons from direct 

 taxation, lightening the burden for 1,000.000 more, 

 and increasing the taxes of only 500.000, who would 

 pay enough in additional taxation to make up for 

 the house tax and provide 6.000.000 francs over, 

 which would be applied to a readjustment of the 

 land tax. On the motion of M. Meline. the Cham- 

 ber voted in favor of another monetary conference, 

 with a view of re-establishing international bimet- 

 allism. A bill regarded as a first step toward the 

 decentralization of higher education, originally in- 

 troduced by M. Ribot, adopted by the Bourgeois 

 Cabinet, and unanimously passed by the Chamber 

 on March 5. gives the title of university to each of 

 the local faculties, and allows each to apply to uni- 

 versity purposes its separate income for class fees, 

 but still leaves the government of the institutions 

 in the hands of the state, which will continue to 

 levy the diploma and examination fees. 



the Radical Cabinet withdrew the bill of M. 

 Trarieux, the former Minister of Justice, debarring 

 Government and railroad employees from taking 

 part in strikes, whereupon Senators framed a more 

 stringent measure making any combination in mili- 

 tary or naval establishments or on railroads for the 

 suspension or prevention of work punishable with 

 imprisonment and more heavily penalizing public 



incitement to such coalition. The Minister of 

 Commerce and Industry introduced in the Cham-' 

 lier a bill of opposite character, subjecting to im- 

 prisonment any person attempting to hamper the 

 fn-e exercise of trades-union rights under the law of 

 1884. The Senate pas<-d a resolution censuring the 

 rnment for appointing Judge Poitevin to con- 

 duct an inquiry into the Southern Railroad scan- 

 dals and passing over the regular judge of the dis- 

 trict for fear he should show sympathy with the 

 incriminated directors and politicians. ' When the 

 subject was brought up in the Chamber on Feb. 13. 

 M. Bourgeois demanded a vote of confidence, which 

 was passed by a poll of 326 to 43. This appeal to 

 the Chamber from the judgment of the Senate 

 prompted the latter body to reaffirm by 161 votes 

 to 71 the order of the day it had adopted on Feb. 

 11, thus making an issue of the constitutional 

 question of the responsibility of the Cabinet in the 

 Second Chamber, a matter on which the Constitu- 

 tion is silent and which had never been legally set- 

 tled, though in the popular belief having its root 

 in the idea of the omnipotence of universal suffrage 

 and confirmed by the issue of the MacMahon crisis 

 and by the dicta of Jules Simon, Jules Ferry, and 

 other great statesmen, that the Senate can not' make 

 or unmake ministries. The Senate has nevertheless 

 the power to withhold supplies and block legislation in 

 a way to render the continued existence of a ministry 

 impossible, and the opposition in that body to the pro- 

 gressive income tax, the labor sympathies, the sep- 

 aration of church and state, and'the whole tendency 

 of the Bourgeois Cabinet, was intense enough to 

 drive it to make use of its power. The Cabinet, not 

 at all reluctant to place the Reactionary majority 

 of the Senate in the position of taking the unpopu- 

 lar and antidemocratic side in a constitutional 

 conflict, issued a declaration that the recent votes 

 of the Chamber "made it their duty to follow the 

 policy that had obtained for them "that mark of 

 confidence." M. Bourgeois, reaffirming the inten- 

 tion of the Government to remain so long as it was 

 supported by the Chamber, obtained on Feb. 20 a 

 new vote of confidence by a majority of 309 to 185, 

 but an amendment censuring the Minister of Jus- 

 tice was defeated by only 45 majority, so that the 

 Socialists saved the Government from defeat by 

 their 60 votes. On the day following the Senate, 

 which the Government protected from any possible 

 outbreak of mob violence by a large force of cav- 

 alry and police, adopted a declaration protesting 

 against the contention that the ministry can govern 

 without the Senate and appeal from "one chamber 

 to the other as an infringement of the Constitution 

 which would justify the refusal of further co-opera- 

 tion with the Government, but announcing its in- 

 tention, in order not to stop the legislative life of 

 the country, to deliberate independently on the 

 ministerial proposals with no other object" than the 

 interests of the country, leaving the country to 

 judge between the ministers who have dared to pro- 

 voke the most serious of crises and the Assembly which 

 abstains from augmenting the constitutional crisis 

 in order not to endanger the public peace, although it 

 has on its side right and law. This declaration 

 was affirmed by a vote of 184 to 60. 



The bureaus' of the Chamber were hostile to the 

 income-tax proposals of the Government, and the 

 Budget Committee was accordingly so constituted 

 that by 28 votes to 5 it resolved to reject any in- 

 come tax based on aggregate receipts, individual 

 returns, or vexatious investigations, and to call on 

 the Government to submit a fresh scheme effecting 

 a more equitable adjustment of public burdens. In 

 like manner the Army Committee by three quarters 

 majority pronounced against the scheme of the 

 Minister of War for reducing the garrisons in Al- 



