FRANCE. 



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hi 



him as generalissimo and Gen. Penclezec was ap- 

 pointed head of the general staff. The difficulty 

 arose from the opposition of Gen. Delanne, the 

 head of the staff, who was removed, to Gen. Andre's 

 act in changing some of the heads of bureaus. 

 The amnesty bill of the Government was violently 

 opposed by the Dreyfusards as well as by the 

 Anti-Semites. It proposed to extinguish all pend- 

 ing prosecutions, including the impeachment of 

 Gen. Mercier, ex-Minister of War, but not to re- 

 store Dreyfus to his civil rights. The vote on the 

 bill was postponed till the winter session. The 

 navy bill and projects for colonial defense com- 

 pelled the Government to devise ways and means 

 for increasing the revenue. Not even the Nation- 

 alists would raise a cry against increased taxation 

 for such purposes. A credit of 01,000,000 francs 

 was voted for gunboats and other means of colonial 

 defense, and the organization of a colonial army 

 was approved. The parties applauded with one 

 mind the operations in the Sahara and the course 

 of M. Pichon, the French minister at Pekin, in 

 the Chinese difficulty. The requirements of the 

 Government were 58,000,000 francs more than in 

 the last budget, 20,000,000 francs of this being for 

 coast defense. An increased yield of the existing 

 taxes was expected to amount to 35,000,000 francs, 

 and the readjusted death duties and new taxes 

 were counted on to produce the remainder. A 

 reduction of the national debt to the extent of 

 37,000,000 francs accruing from the repayment 

 of war loans was a feature of the budget of M. 

 Caillaux. The naval programme involved the ex- 

 penditure of between 150,000,000 and 200,000,000 

 francs a year, including the cost of coast defenses. 

 The abolition of the octroi duties by the towns is 

 a fiscal reform that has been contemplated for a 

 long time. This tax on articles of consumption 

 collected at the gates of the large towns produces 

 about 330,000,000 francs a year throughout France. 

 It is a tax unsuited to modern methods of living, 

 costly to collect, inconvenient, and obstructive to 

 trade, causing a loss to the community much 

 greater than the net receipts of the towns from 

 this source. The first large town to do away with 

 it is Dijon. The Chamber agreed to the proposal 

 of the municipality to supersede the duty by in- 

 creasing the taxes on houses, wine shops, horses 

 and carriages, and dogs. The Chamber agreed to 

 a bill exempting school-teachers from their annual 

 period of drill in the reserves, and resolved that 

 all reservists be released from this service for the 

 year in order to facilitate visits to the exhibition, 

 but did not carry the resolution into effect because 

 the authorities insisted that a special law would 

 be necessary. 



The new direct taxes proposed in the budget 

 ere earned through by a great majority. The 

 icorne tax act is expected to double the amount 

 itherto paid by the average citizen. Foreigners 

 residing in France are taxed equally with French- 

 men. The amount of income received by the indi- 

 vidual is roughly computed by multiplying by 5 

 or 6 the amount that he pays for rent, and on 

 this income he pays a tax of 4 per cent. The 

 session was closed on July 10. 



The Chambers met again on Nov. 6. A deficit 

 instead of the contemplated surplus for the year 

 was the forecast of the Budget Committee. The 

 legislation proposed by the Premier included the 

 remodeling of the duties on strong drink in con- 

 nection with the prospective reduction at the be- 

 ginning of 1901 of the octroi duties on hygienic 

 beverages, such as wine and cider; a bill on asso- 

 ciations, by which the Government hoped to put 

 an end to an increasing peril and prevent the crea- 

 tion of an influence that no state could tolerate; 



the creation of workmen's pensions, and measures 

 on the education of state officials, courts-martial, 

 trade unions, and the income tax. With regard 

 to strikes, the bill of 1892 provided for optional 

 arbitration, compulsory arbitration having been 

 objected to as an infringement of the right to 

 strike and also as an unwarranted extension of 

 the powers of the state, even though the enforced 

 arrangement should be more reasonable than one 

 that the masters and men might make among 

 themselves. The results of the law of 1892 ha I 

 been considerable, and recent prolonged strikes had 

 been settled by arbitration, though not by justices 

 of the peace, the official arbitrators. The Govern- 

 ment did not consider the state entitled to dictate 

 to individuals how they should regulate their fac- 

 tories or settle their disputes, but it was desirable 

 that the free working of arrangements between 

 employers and employed should lead to something 

 better than the present situation; to this end it 

 was proposed to introduce a clause into labor con- 

 tracts which would make arbitration obligatory 

 upon the parties after they had freely entered into 

 such contracts. 



A bill was introduced into the Senate by M. 

 Piot imposing a tax on unmarried men and women 

 above thirty years of age and on couples married 

 for five years and having no offspring, while re- 

 warding families of more than 4 children out of 

 an annual credit of 20,000,000 francs. The reli- 

 gious associations, which the Government decided 

 to place under stricter regulations because by in- 

 genious evasion of the existing law or owing to 

 its lax administration they had reached a position 

 in which a serious peril to the state was discerned, 

 hold in mortmain property valued at 1,000,000,00!) 

 francs and personal property estimated at a higher 

 figure. This great wealth has been employed for 

 political as well as for religious purposes, and the 

 political aims followed by the religious orders are 

 subversive of the republican state. M. Waldeck- 

 Rousseau declared that the religious orders, dis- 

 persed but not suppressed, have covered France 

 with their operations, usurping the functions of 

 the secular clergy, acquiring control of the semi- 

 naries, and defying the authority of the bishops. 

 The bill on education, supplementing the measure 

 dealing with religious associations, requires those 

 who wish to enter the civil service or the army to 

 receive their education in the secular state insti- 

 tutions, since under present conditions half the 

 youth of France are educated in such a way as to 

 become practical strangers to the other half, and 

 in clerical institutions become involved with ideas 

 fundamentally hostile to the republic. 



A debate on its general policy resulted in a 

 majority for the Government of 330 to 238, a 

 greater one than it commanded in the previous 

 session. The bill on strikes, presented by M. Mille- 

 rand, provides that in every factory employing 50 

 or more men a printed notice shall state whether 

 or not arbitration is one of the conditions of em- 

 ployment. All state contracts will require it to 

 be. If it is a condition in private employment, 

 the men are to elect delegates, who will submit 

 any complaints or demands to the employer, and, 

 failing an agreement, both sides may nominate 

 arbitrators. In case the employer refuses to do so, 

 the men may resolve to strike by secret ballot, 

 but the majority must comprise at least one third 

 of the persons employed, and there must also be a 

 weekly vote to decide on the continuance of the 

 strike or its cessation. A previous measure de- 

 creed in September provided for the creation of 

 labor councils composed equally of employers and 

 workmen nominated by their trade unions or syn- 

 dicates. These bodies will inform the Government 





