SPEECH of the KING of FRANCE, on opening the Session of the Chambers, on Tuesday the 4th of June. "Gentlemen ; The necessity which has long been felt of freeing the administration of the finances from those provisional measures to which it has been necessary hitherto to recur, has determined me, this year, to anticipate the period of your convocation. In exacting from you this new sacrifice, I rely upon the zeal and devotion of which you have given me so many proofs. "Providence has preserved the infant which it has given to us, and it is pleasing for me to hope that he is destined to repair the losses and the misfortunes which have befallen my family and people. "I have the satisfaction to announce to you, that my relations with foreign powers continue to be of the most amicable nature. A perfect unanimity has directed the efforts, daily concerted between my allies and myself, to put an end to the calamities which oppress the East, and which afflict humanity. I cherish the hope of seeing tranquillity restored in those countries without the occurrence of a new war to aggravate their miseries. "The naval force which I maintain in the Levant has fulfilled its destination, in protecting my subjects, and in affording aid to the unfortunate, whose gratitude has been the reward of our solicitude. "I have continued the precautions which have kept from our frontiers the contagion which has ravaged a part of Spain; the present season does not permit us to neglect them, and I shall therefore maintain them as long as the safety of the country may require it. Malevolence alone can discover in these measures a pretext for misrepresenting my intentions. "Mad attempts have disturbed in some parts of the kingdom public tranquillity; but they have only given occasion for a more signal display of the zeal of the magistrates and the fidelity of the troops. If a small number of individuals, who are the enemies of order, view with despair our institutions consolidated and rendering a new support to my throne, my people abhor their criminal designs. I shall not suffer violence to deprive them of the blessings which they enjoy. "Calamities, too true, though exaggerated by fear, have recently desolated departments contiguous to the capital. The aid of public and private benevolence has, however, mitigated them. The activity of the inhabitants prepared the way for terminating these disasters; authority seconded their zeal; justice will punish the guilty. "The exact state of the debt of arrears is at length ascertained, and will be submitted to you. This debt, whose origin is in times happily far removed from us, and whose liquidation has ascertained to us its full extent, will retard, for the present year, in spite of my deepest regret, a part of those ameliorations of which the various branches of the public revenue will be susceptible. we "The advantages which have already obtained should encourage us to unite our efforts to maintain and to increase them. I rely upon your aid to secure, in our beautiful country, that prosperity which Providence designs for us: this is the wish of my heart, the incessant object of my thoughts; it is the consoling idea which alleviates the recollection of my pains, and which gilds my anticipations of the future." ROYAL ORDNANCE, concerning the duties on American shipping and Produce. PARIS. Sept. 5.-Louis, by the Grace of God, &c. &c.-On the report of our minister secretary of state and finance, our Council being heard, we have ordered and do order as follows: Art. 1. The application of our ordnance of the 26th of July, 1820, purporting that "the duties of tonnage collected on foreign vessels arriving in the ports of our kingdom situated in Europe, shall be replaced, with regard to the ships of the United States of America by a special duty of 90 francs per ton," shall be suspended from and after the 1st of October next. 2. From and after the said date of the 1st of October, and until it be otherwise ordered, the natural produce or manufactures of the United States of America, which when imported by vessels belonging to that power, pay, in virtue of the laws now in force, a surcharge amounting to more than 20 francs per marine ton (tonneau de mer), shall only pay an additional duty of 20 francs per ton over and above the duties paid on the same natural produce or manufactures of the United States when imported in French ships. Such articles of the said produce, the surcharge on which does not amount to 20 francs per ton, shall continue to pay the duties and surcharges imposed by the general tariff, the present ordnance being Cotton, in wool. Rice 725 All other articles not specified, and which are weighed, 1,016 kilograms. Those generally measured, 42 cúbic French feet. 4. The produce of the soil and of the industry of the union which are re-exported after deposit, or pass in transit through France, shall continue to pay no differential duty. 5. Under the name of tonnage duty, American ships shall pay only a duty of 5 francs per ton of measurement according to the American register of the vessel; they will thereby be relieved from the tonnage duty established by the laws of the 18th of October, 1793, and the 4th of May, 1802, and will only be liable, on the same footing as French ships, to the other taxes and dues relative to navigation; such as light-house duty, pilotage, brokerage, and others which affect foreign vessels in a different manner-the administration of the Customs remaining charged with paying those entitled, out of the produce of the collection of the above 5 francs per ton, the differences to which American ships would have been subject in virtue of any laws and regulations, whether general or local. Our minister secretary of state for finance is charged with the ex- RUSSIAN FINANCES. THE Council of Superintendance over the Public Debt having met on the 18th of May, his excellency Count Gourieff, minister of finances opened the sitting by the following dis course: Gentlemen, by the manifest of the 7th May, 1817, this council is charged with the examination of the annual accounts, and all the new measures which relate to these institutions. In your last sitting, a project was presented to you for an Assurance bank, and for an Office of Loans, for the proprietors of trades and manufactures. You have examined them with all the attention which objects of this importance demand; and after having made such amendments as you judged useful, you unanimously consented to their adoption. This happy agreement confirms me in the hope that at the mo→ ment when these regulations are put in force, after having received the sanction of his majesty, they will serve to consolidate, to extend, and to give prosperity to the enterprises of our manufacturers. At present, gentlemen, I am going to submit to your inspection the accounts of the public debt for the year 1821; but before you examine them in detail, it is my duty to present to you a statement of their principal operations; the comparison of their several im provements will show how much we have to expect from them in future. SINKING FUND. The public debt is divided into three parts-that contracted for before the institution of this fund-that which arises from the loans made to diminish the mass of paper money-and, lastly, that which has been contracted for since the institution of the Sinking-fund, in order to meet the unforeseen demands of the different branches of the administration. The first is composed of our debt to Holland-of that for a fixed period to the chest of the Imperial Foundling Hospital, and to other public establishments; and debts of which the capital is not payable but upon perpetual annuities, as well from the imperial Treasury as from those of war and marine. The amount of these latter, and especially those of the War-office, has not been known till after an examination which presented great difficulties. The inquiry still continues; and, with the exception of certain claims, the amount of which has VOL. LXIV. 2 M not been ascertained, but which cannot be any thing considerable, we observe that the state of these debts inscribed on the Great Book, since the opening of the commission to the 31st of December, 1821, is as follows: The debt to Holland, remaining at the expense of 50,600,000 florins 11,646,418 roubles 38 c. metal. . 204,068,739 34 assig. By the manifesto of April, 1817, it has been ordained with respect to these debts, to transmit every year to the commissioners of the Sinking-fund 30 millions of assignments on the bank, as well for their redemption or repayment as for the discharge of the interest of the rentes. This interest demanded for the first year a sum of more than 20 millions (as much as 20,190,764 roubles); there remained, therefore, for the liquidation of the capital less than 10 millions, of which about one million (making 500,000 florins) is destin for the repayment of the Dutch debt; the rest has been assigned to debts contracted in the country. Those of which the payment was not fixed at precise periods, have been converted into perpetual rentes, of which a part has been made redeemable, the rest not redeemable or unalienable at the will of the creditor. The first have amounted originally to A capital of 117,581,000 For the redemption of the first, a sinking fund of two per cent on the amount has been created. It is annually increased by the rentes redeemed. These debts had been reduced on the 1st of January, 1822, to the following capital sums : Debt of Holland Debts at terms Perpetual rentes in metallic roubles In paper roubles irredeemable and in- Transferred from rentes redeemable 48,600,000 florins 8,063,080 metallic currency 23,110,904 paper 7,906,692 99,007,500 1,701,200 since the date of their first inscription on the Great Book. The total of metallic roubles Of paper . 26,008,700 125,016,200 10,969,772 148,127,104 This shows us that, during the last five years since the Sinking-fund was instituted, the former debts have diminished The debts at term which remain will be all redeemed in about ten years, which will place at the disposal of the commission a sum of about 12,000,000, and the Sinking-fund on the perpetual annuities which increases every year by the rentes redeemed, will bring them into the funds of the commission in 20 years. The second kind of debt, namely, the loans made during the four last years to accelerate the diminution of the paper money, has been contracted in 1817 and 1818 in assignats, at 6 per cent of rentes, and in 1820 in [metallic roubles bearing interest at 5 per cent. The first two loans amounted in sums inscribed to 113,633,451 assignats. 338,580 metallic roubles 3,740 metallic roubles 3,913,030 assignats The sums redeemed of these debts are There only then remained on the 1st of And . But as in this sum there were unalien able rentes to the amount of And There only remains of redeemable rentes And 334,840 metallic roubles 109,720,371 paper roubles 7,320 metallic roubles 11,794,911 paper 327,520 metallic 97,925,460 paper Which by the annual increase of the Sinking-fund, by means of redeemed rentes, will likewise be reduced in 20 years. There will then remain only 11,794,911 unalienable roubles which, added to 26,000,000 mentioned above, belong almost wholly to public establishments. The loan in metallic inscriptions made by means of the house of Baring and Hope is for 40 millions, but only 26,750,000 roubles have been carried to the account of the 30,000,000 assigned to the diminution of the paper money. We have already redeemed of the loan a capital of 701,700 roubles. Of the produce which the commission has drawn from, we burnt in 1820, and we are going to burn for 1821, 46,851,394 roubles. The commission for the Sinking-fund keeps the remainder at its disposal. Up to January, 1821, we have burnt and we are about to burn We have redeemed in all 191,109,420 roubles 44,968,230 236,077,650 |