unting to
more than 98,000,000 francs, into an excess of expenditure over receipts
under his 'truly Republican' successor amounting to 475,148,100 francs!

From that moment to this the Third Republic has been steadily expending
for France year after year at least five hundred millions of francs, or
twenty millions of pounds sterling, more than it has been able to
collect from the French people in the way of normal revenue. The exact
amount of this monstrous deficiency it is not easy to state with
precision. So distinguished an economist as M. Leroy-Beaulieu, a
Republican of the moderate type, puts it at the sum I have stated, of
five hundred millions a year for ten years. At the elections of last
year the Carnot Government ordered, or encouraged, the Prefect of the
Herault, M. Pointu-Nores, to oppose openly and energetically the
election of M. Leroy-Beaulieu as a deputy for the district of Lodeve in
that department. Why? M. Leroy-Beaulieu is one of the few really able
and distinguished Frenchmen, known beyond the limits of France, who may
be regarded as sincere believers in the possibility of founding a
substantial and orderly French Republic. But M. Leroy-Beaulieu, when he
sees a deficiency in the public accounts, calls it a deficiency, and
lifts up his voice in warning against a policy which accepts an annual
deficiency of five hundred millions of francs as natural, normal, and to
be expected in the administration of a great Republic.

Therefore, the presence of M. Leroy-Beaulieu in the Chamber of Deputies
is a thing to be prevented at any price. The 'Republicans' of the
Herault this year tried to prevent it not only by treating 'informal'
ballots thrown for him as invalid, and accepting 'informal' ballots
thrown against him as valid, but, as the report of a Committee of the
Chamber admits, by 'irregularities' which in other countries would be
described in harsher terms.

Yet the majority of the new Chamber has postponed action upon this
report of its own Committee till after the recess, and M. Leroy-Beaulieu
is not yet allowed to occupy the seat which the voters of Lodeve
undoubtedly chose him to fill.

If we accept M. Leroy-Beaulieu's estimate of the average annual
deficiency in the French budget as correct, it is clear that the 'true
Republicans' have mulcted France since 1879 in the round sum of five
milliards of francs--or, in other words, of a second German War
Indemnity!

But a banker of eminence, thoroug