FRENCH EXPENDITURES by Julius Hawley Seelye

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 9, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 35.

FRENCH EXPENDITURES.

By Julius Hawley Seelye

The expenditures of the French government are greater than those of any other nation in the world, amounting to over six hundred millions of dollars a year. Its funded public debt is nearly four thousand millions of dollars, and its floating debt is over twenty-seven hundred millions more. Considerably over one-third of the enormous annual expenditures of the government is required by the national debt, and nearly one-half of the remainder by the army and navy. In comparison with monarchical and imperial times, the expenses attaching to the great offices of State are small, the president of the republic receiving a yearly salary of 600,000 francs, while Louis Philippe received 12,000,000 francs a

year, and Louis Napoleon twice that sum, besides, in each case, the great sums voted to the royal and imperial households.

The area of France is 204,092 square miles, which is nearly the same as that of the German Empire, excluding Alsace-Lorraine. Its population in 1881 was 37,672,048, of whom 692,800 were classed as Protestants, and 54,436, as Jews.—Pres. J. H. Seelye, D. D.