n an average, $160 per acre. She has over 400,000 miles of the
finest common roads in the world, which have cost her, at the ordinary
rate of labor, over $5,000,000,000. Their benefit goes chiefly to
agriculture, binding the farmers of different provinces and farmers and
city dwellers together. She has over 10,000 miles of canals and canalized
rivers; she has 25,000 miles of railways, all in the highest state of
efficiency. She has, during her bimetallic period, become the second
colonial power of the world, and has acquired foreign territory at such a
rate as to excite the jealousy of England. She has become the second naval
power on the globe, and the second exporting nation, her exports averaging
some $900,000,000 per year, an amount larger than the exports from this
country, which has a population nearly double that of France, nearly all
of it being manufactures; and had the same rate of growth continued as was
maintained before France became monometallic, it is fair to presume that
her exports at this time would have equalled those of Great Britain. Best
of all, the great increase of wealth is in the hands of those who created
it. It is the universal testimony of all observers that the condition of
the French people and the general aspect of France has steadily improved
throughout this century. It is a country in which poor-houses are unknown;
in her cities a beggar is a curiosity. In their country's emergency the
common people came forward and out of their savings paid $1,000,000,000
accumulated during the bimetallic period. Despite the loss of $240,000,000
in the Panama Canal and of $1,000,000,000 in the indemnity to Germany, as
well as two of her richest provinces, France has accumulated hundreds of
millions of dollars in the securities of other countries, and has only
recently been able to subscribe twenty-five times over the Russian loan,
and is negotiating a loan to China, the money for which is to be supplied
by her working people.

Be it noted also that the debt of France is held by the people of France,
largely by the industrial class, and especially by the agricultural class,
and the interest thereon paid, instead of being a foreign drain, is a
perpetual renewal of the current circulation.

One more brief contrast between France and England. No reader of current
literature need be told of the appalling prevalence of poverty in Great
Britain. As France is a country without poor-houses, so it may be said
th