at 4% at par, with the additional benefit of an annuity of £1, 16s. 3d.% for eighty years. Even so late as the Crimean Wai in 1855, a loan of 16 millions at 3% at par was contracted, the contributors receiving in addition an annuity of 14s. 6d. % for thirty years. The third method of contracting terminable loans, that of gradual repayment or amortization within a certain limit of years, has been a favourite one among certain nations, and specially commends itself to those whose credit is at a low ebb. When the final term of repayment is fixed upon, a calculation is easily made as to how much is to be paid half-yearly until the expiry of the term, so that at the end the whole, principal and interest, will have been paid. At first, of course, the amount paid will largely represent interest, but, as at each half-yearly drawing of the numbers of the bonds to be finally paid off the principal will be gradually reduced, there will be more and more money set free from interest for the reduction of the actual debt. This method, as we have said, has its advantages, and when conjoined with stipulations as to liberty of conversion to debt bearing a lower rate of interest than that originally offered, and when the bonds are not issued at a figure much below par, might be the most satisfactory method of raising money for a state under certain emergencies. What is known as the "Morgan loan" of France in 1870 was contracted on such conditions. The last form of temporary loan, that repayable in bulk at a fixed date, is one which, when the sum is of considerable amount, is apt to be attended with serious disadvantages. The repayment may have to be made at a time when a state may not be in a position to meet it, and so to keep faith with its creditors may have to borrow at a higher rate in order to pay their claims. It has, however, worked well in the United States, most of the debt of which has been contracted on the principle of optional payment at the end of a short period, say five years, and compulsory payment at the end of a longer period, say twenty years. Thus the loan of 515 millions of dollars contracted in 1862 was issued on this principle, at 6%, and so with other loans between that year and 1868. In European states, however, the risks of embarrassment are too great to permit of the application of this method on an extensive scale; and for loans of great amount the methods most likely to yield satisfactory results are loans bearing quasi-perpetual interest, or those repayable by instalments on the basis of half-yearly drawings within a certain period.

What are known as lottery loans are greatly favoured on the continent, either as an independent means of raising money, or as an adjunct to any of the methods referred to above. These must not be confounded with the lottery pure and simple, in which the contributors run the risk of losing the whole of their investment. The lottery loan has been found to work well for small sums, when the interest is but little below what it would have been in an ordinary loan, and when the percentage thus set aside to form prizes of varying amounts forms but a small fraction of the whole interest payable. The principle is that each contributor of such a loan has a greater or less chance of drawing a prize of varying amount, over and above the repayment of his capital with interest.

What are known in England as exchequer bills and treasury bills may be regarded as loans payable at a fixed period of short duration, from three months upwards, and bearing very insignificant interest, even so low as 1%. They are a useful means of raising money for immediate wants and for local loans, and form handy investments for capitalists who are reserving their funds for a special purpose. Exchequer bonds are simply a special form of the funded debt, to be paid off generally within a certain period of years.

There are two principal methods of issuing or effecting a loan. Either the state may appeal directly to capitalists and invite subscriptions, or it may delegate the negotiation to one or more bankers, The former method has been occasionally followed in France and Russia, but in practice it has been found to be attended with so many disadvantages to the borrowing state or city that the best financial authorities consider it unsound. The great bankinghouses have such a command over the money-market that it is

difficult to keep even a direct loan out of their hands. The majority of loans, therefore, are negotiated by one or more of these houses, and the name of Rothschild is familiar to every one in connexion with such transactions. By this method a borrowing state can assure itself of having the proceeds of the loan with the least possible delay and with the minimum of trouble. A loan may be issued at, above, or below par, though generally it is either at or below par loan, the sum which the borrowing government undertakes to pay par "being the normal or theoretical price of a single share in the back for each share on reimbursement, without discount or premium. Very generally, as an inducement to investors, a loan is offered at a greater or less discount, according to the credit of the borrowing bidders; for example, the city of Auckland in 1875 invited subgovernment. Sometimes a state may offer a loan to the highest scriptions through the Bank of New Zealand to a loan of £100,000 at 6%; offers were made of six times the amount, but only those were accepted which were at the rate of 98% or above. The rate of interest offered generally depends on the credit of the state issuing the loan. England, for example, would have no difficulty in raising any amount at 3% or even less, while less stable states may have to pay 8 or 9%. The nominal percentage is by no means, however, always an index of the cost of a loan to a state, as the history of the debt of England disastrously shows. During the 18th century various expedients were employed, besides that of terminable annuities already referred to, to raise money for the great wars of the period, at an apparently low percentage. For example, from 3 to 5% would be offered for a loan, the actual amount of stock per cent. allotted being sometimes 107 or even 111; so that between 1776 and 1785, for the £91,763,842 actually borrowed by the government, £115,267,993 was to be paid back. In 1797 a loan of £1,620,000 was contracted, for every £100 of which actually subscribed, at 3%, the sum of £219 was allotted to the lender. In 1793 a 3% loan of 41 millions was offered at the price of £72%. the government thus making itself liable for £6,250,000. Greatly owing to this reckless method the debt of Great Britain in 1815 amounted to over 900 millions. France in this respect has been quite as extravagant as England; many of her loans during the 19th century were issued at from 52 to 84%, one indeed (1848) embarrassing increase of the French debt during the 19th century so low as 45%-as a rule with 5% interest. The enormous and was doubtless greatly due to this disastrous system. Nearly every European state and most of the Central and South American states have at one time or another aggravated their debts by this method Financiers almost unanimously maintain that in the long run it is of borrowing, and got themselves into difficulty with their creditors. much better for a state to borrow at high interest at or near par, than at an apparently low interest much below par. A state of even the highest rank may find itself in the midst of a crisis that will for a time shake its credit; but when the crisis is past and its credit revives it will be in a much more sound position with a high interest for a debt contracted at par than with a comparatively low interest on a debt much in excess of what it really received. If a state, for example, borrows at par at 6% when its credit is low, it may easily when again in a flourishing condition reduce the interest on its debt to 4 or even 3%. The United States government actually did so with the debt it had to contract at the time of the Civil War. This method of reducing the burden of a debt is evidently no injustice to the creditors of a government, when used in a legitimate way. A state is at liberty at any time to pay off its debts, and, if it can borrow at 3% to pay off a 6% debt, it may with perfect justice offer its creditors the option of payment of the principal or of holding it at a reduced interest. Government debts are, however, sometimes reduced after a fashion by no means so legitimate as this. Other states have been even more unprincipled, and have got rid of their debts at one sweep by the simple method of repudiation.

When a state has a variety of loans at varying rates of interest, it may consolidate them into a single debt at a uniform interest. For example, in 1751 several descriptions of English debt were consolidated into one fund bearing a uniform interest of 3%, an operadated annuities"). In the early days of the English national debt, tion which gave origin to the familiar term "consols" ("consoli a special tax or fund was appropriated to the payment of the interest on each particular loan. This was the original meaning of "the funds," a term which has now come to signify the national debt debt which has been recognized as at least quasi-permanent, and for generally. So also the origin of the term "funded as applied to a the payment of the interest on which regular provision is made. Unfunded or floating debt, on the other hand, means strictly loans for which no permanent provision requires to be made, which have been obtained for temporary purposes with the intention of paying them off within a brief period. Exchequer and treasury bills are included in this category, and such other moneys in the hands of a government as it may be required to reimburse at any moment. Where a government is the recipient of savings banks deposits, these may be included in its floating debt, and so also may the papermoney which has been issued so largely by some governments. A state with an excessive floating debt must be regarded as in a very critical financial condition.

National debt, again, is divided into external and internal, according as the loans have been raised within or without the country→

some states, generally, the smaller ones, having a considerable amount of exclusively internal debt, though it is obvious that the We referred above to various ways of reducing the burden of a debt, and also to methods of contracting loans by which within a certain period they are amortized or extinguished. Most states, however, are burdened with enormous quasi-permanent debts, the reduction or extinction of which gives ample scope for the financial skill of statesmen. A favourite method of accomplishing this is by the establishment of what is known as a sinking fund, formed by the setting aside of a certain amount of national revenue for the reduction of the principal of the debt. (J. S. K.)

bulk of national debts are both external and internal.

The following table shows the general state of the world's public indebtedness at the beginning of the 20th century, divided according to the more important countries, the bracketed figures in black type indicating the position of the country referred to under each heading in the list. The figures are given by preference for the year 1900, as more representative, in a case like this, than for some later years; for the Boer War, as regards the United Kingdom, and also the Russo-Japanese War, introduced new debt and new considerations, hardly fair to the comparison, while this stands at the end of a long period of peace. The figures in every case are not to be supposed to be absolutely accurate; statistics of national debts differ, often remarkably, and it is practically impossible to give a perfectly satisfactory comparison, owing partly to difficulties of computing the exchange, partly to inaccurate accounts, and partly to the varieties of debt (reproductive or non-reproductive, &c.).

Kingdom (756 millions) stood second to that of France (1000 millions), in 1900 it stood third to France and Russia; whereas in 1883 its weight per head of population was third, in 1900 it was eleventh; whereas in 1883 its annual charge stood second, in 1900 it stood fourth; and whereas the weight of the charge per head of population in 1883 was fifth, in 1900 it was eleventh. The indebtedness of the great British dependencies, on the other hand, had increased from 302 millions to 544 millions sterling, or by 242 millions; and the local (municipal) debt of Great Britain had risen from about 100 millions to upwards of 300 millions.

History

of

British debt.

It is interesting to recall the history of the British national debt during the 19th century. The debt at the close of the Napoleonic war (1816) was nearly 887 millions sterling, and at the beginning of 1900 this debt had been reduced to 621 millions,1 or a decrease of 266 millionsnotwithstanding interim additions of about 367 millions, which made the gross reduction during that period 633 millions sterling, an amount actually larger than the whole (dead-weight) debt at the end of the century. No country (except the United States, to a smaller amount) has ever redeemed its obligations on such a scale, and this was done while all other European countries of similar standing were piling up debt.

This enormous reduction was effected at different rates of speed. Between 1817 and 1830, when what was known as

The total indebtedness of the countries named in the table åmounted to £6,311,017,478, and the total indebtedness of the world (ie. including countries not here mentioned) for the year 1898 was computed by Lord Avebury (Journ. Roy. Stat. Soc. vol. Ixiv. part i.) as £6,432,757,000, as against £5,097,910,000 in 1888. This compares (taking figures compiled by Mr Dudley Baxter in Journ. Roy. Stat. Soc., March 1874) with a total indebted ness of 4680 millions sterling in 1874 and 1700 millions sterling in 1848. The United Kingdom had diminished its total debt since 1883 by 127 millions, the amount per head by £6, the annual charge by 6 millions, and the charge per head by 5s. 8d. The United States debt was lower by nearly a hundred millions. Japan, Egypt and Brazil had sensibly improved their positions. But the following countries had increased their debts: France (by 86 millions), Russia (by some 240 millions), Italy (by 140 millions), Austria-Hungary (by 70 millions), Spain (by 190 millions), Prussia (by 227 millions), Portugal (by 80 millions), Holland (by 18 millions), Belgium (by 32 millions), and Argentina (by 73 millions).

The result is that, whereas in 1883 the total debt of the United

Pitt's sinking fund was in operation (depending upon the devotion of surplus income to the repayment of debt, but much complicated by the raising of fresh loans), a net reduction was made of £29,488,072-an annual average of £2,268,313. From 1830 to 1876 the system of using surplus revenue-the so-called old sinking fund-for redeeming debt, was steadily applied, together with the creation of terminable annuities, by which definite blocks of debt were cancelled and the whole amount paid off in a term of years. During this period the debt was reduced by £85,175,782, an annual average of £1,851,647. In 1876 Sir Stafford Northcote's (Lord Iddesleigh's) new sinking fund came into operation, in addition to previous methods of redeeming debt. By this system a definite annual sum was set aside for the service of the debt, the difference between it and Leaving out of account 8 millions of unfunded debt raised for the Boer War.

The" dead-weight" debt, or national debt proper, excludes what interest on which is not included in the fixed charge; but it is taken are treated in the public accounts as "other capital liabilities," the to include the new debt of all sorts raised in 1900, 1901 and 1902 for the Boer War.

the amount required for payment of interest forming a (new) sinking fund devoted to repayment of capital. This fixed charge was gradually reduced from about 29 millions to 26 millions in 1888, to 25 millions in 1890, and to 23 millions in 1899. The amount paid off during this period by means of old sinking fund, terminable annuities and new sinking fund, down to March 1900, was £155,238,639, or an annual average of £6,468,276.

It will be observed that the burden of the debt incurred previously to 1817 has thus been borne very unequally by different ages of " posterity." While the generations immediately succeeding the Napoleonic war paid off about £2,000,000 a year, the taxpayers between 1876 and 1900 paid at three times that rate. They did so largely without knowing it, since a large part of the amount was wrapped up in the terminable annuities; but it is very questionable justice that so large a proportion of the burden should have been imposed upon them.

The great bulk of the funded national debt consists of what are known as consols." This name dates from 1751, when nine different government annuities at 3% were Consols. consolidated into one, amounting to. £9,137,821. These consolidated annuities" formed the germ of what has since become the type of British government stock. At the same time some of the annuities at a higher rate of interest were combined and the interest reduced to 3%, and this stock was known as 'reduced," the two 3% stocks remaining side by side, until in 1854 the 31% government stock was also converted into 3%, under the style of "new threes." Consols," reduced" "and 'new threes" formed thenceforth a solid body of British 3% stock, until in 1888 the whole amount was converted (see Conversions below) by Mr (afterwards Lord) Goschen into 24%. "Consols were added to from time to time when fresh loans were needed: from 39 millions in 4771 they rose to 71 millions

"

amount more was practically locked up by being held by trustees, or by banks, insurance societies, &c. The savings banks deposits, increasing as they did by about £1,000,000 per month (owing partly to the raising in 1894 of the maximum limit), had to be invested in government securities; and the compulsory activity of the government as a buyer of consols, both on this account and also for sinking fund purposes (in order to obtain stock to redeem debt on the increased scale already indicated) operated as an abnormal cause for sending the price of consols high above par. Even at that figure (the average prices for consols being 101 in 1894, 1061 in 1895, 110 in 1896, 1121 in 1897, 110 in 1898 and 1061-having fallen owing to war prospects-in 1899) it was difficult for the govern ment brokers to obtain consols, and it was principally owing to this state of things that in 1899 Sir Michael Hicks-Beach reduced the fixed annual charge for the debt (and pro tanto the new sinking fund) from £25,000,000 to £23,000,000.

It may be useful to give the figures for the British national debt in 1902, after the disturbance due to the South African War. During the years 1900 and 1901 the new sinking fund was suspended, as well as the payments on the terminable annuity debt applicable to repayment of capital (except in so far as annuities to individuals were concerned); so that the debt was not reduced, as it would otherwise have been, by £4,547,000 in 1900 and by £4,681,000 in 1901. On the contrary, it was increased by fresh borrowings. Consols were raised (in 1901 and 1902) to the extent of £92,000,000; a "War Loan " of 21% stock and bonds, redeemable in 1910, was raised (1900) to the amount of £30,000,000; 2% exchequer bonds were raised (in 1900) to the amount of £24,000,000, and treasury bills (in 1899 and 1900), £13,000,000. The total war borrowing amounted accordingly to £159,000,000, raised at a discount of (£6,585,000) 4.14%. This includes the whole new borrowing in 1902, a portion of which was intended after the peace to be paid back in the current year; but for this no allowance can here be made. The accompanying table shows the totals for the “dead-weight debt " in 1900, 1901 and 1902, and, for convenience, also the "other capital liabilities."

"Dead-weight Debt.

31st March 1900

£628,978,782

1901

"

690,992,621

1902. 1902.

in 1781, to ΙΟΙ millions in 1783, 278 millions in 1801, 334 millions in 1811, and 400 millions in 1858; but in 1888 they had decreased, by redemptions, to £322,681,035. "Reduced " were also added to: from 17 millions in 1751 they rose to 164 millions in 1815, and then gradually diminished to 102 millions in 1869, and to £68,912,433 in 1887, when they were converted with "consols" into the new consols (or "Goschens ") at 21%, to be reduced to 2% in 1903.

July

The lowest price ever quoted for "consols" was 47 on 20th September 1797, owing to the mutiny at the Nore; the highest was 114 in 1896 owing to scarcity of stock, the operation of the sinking funds, and the demand for investment of savings bank

moneys.

The high premium to which consols rose towards the end of the century may be briefly explained. Pari passu with the reduction of the debt went a dwindling of the amount of consols open to investors, and hence occurred a continued normal appreciation of the stock. In 1817 the amount of British government stock per head of the population was £40, 10s.; in 1896 this figure had decreased to £14, 128. The ordinary law of supply and demand would therefore in any case tend to increase the price of government stock. This has always happened. The amount of 3% diminished from 528 millions in 1817 to 498 in 1827, and to 497 in 1837, and the average prices in these years were 73, 83 and 90; additions were made to the stock, and in 1847 (the amount being 510 millions) the price was 86; again the amount decreased, and in 1852 (500 millions) the price was 98; then a great conversion raised the amount to 734 millions in 1854, and the price went down to 904; but by 1887 the amount decreased by about 200 millions, and the price rose well above par; and though the reduction in interest in 1888 set back the price, it rose again as the amount of available stock diminished. Many causes, into which it is not necessary to enter, operated no doubt in keeping up the demand for British government credit. Moreover, apart from the fact that in 1882 there were 689 millions of 3% and in 1900 only 501 millions of 21% in existence, the amount held by government departments and therefore practically locked up from the market, gradually increased, until from this cause alone the amount of available stock was diminished by upwards of 200 millions; and a large

747,876,000

Chief Cause of Difference. 1

+"War Loan," £30,000,000

+Exch. Bonds,

+Treas. Bills,

+Consols,

+Consols,

24,000,000

"Other Liabilities."

£10,186,482

779,876,000 Other liabilities" it must be remembered, represent money advanced (generally by terminable annuity) on reproductive objects-telegraphs, barracks, public works, Uganda railway, &c. and they could not, obviously, be properly included in the national debt unless at the same time a set-off were made for the valuable assets held by the British government, such as the Sucz canal shares, which in 1902 were alone worth upwards of £26,000,000. (H. CH.)

British National Debt Conversions.-The great bulk of the funded debt of the United Kingdom consists of annuities, which are described as perpetual, because the state is under no obligation to pay off at any time the capital debt which they represent. All that the public creditor can claim is to receive payment of the instalments of annuity as they fall due. On the other hand, the government has the right to redeem the annuities ultimately by payment of the capital debt; though it may, and frequently does, bind itself not to exercise that right as regards a particular stock of annuities until after a definite period. So long as a stock is thus guaranteed against redemption, the only way in which the annual charge for that portion of the debt can be reduced is by the government buying back the annuities in the open market at their current price, which may be more or may be less than the nominal debt, according to general financial conditions and to the state of the national credit. The liability of the stock to redemption at par, when the period of guarantee has expired, prevents its market price from rising materially above that level. To enable the right of compulsory redemption to be enforced, it is only necessary that the government should

Other causes are redemption of land tax, variation in capital value of terminable annuities and minor treasury operations.

to the public credit. Mr Gladstone had also included, as an optional portion of his plan, liberty to holders of the larger 3% stocks to exchange into the new 3 and 21%. Very little advantage was taken of this permission, but the small amount of 24% stock then created has been largely added to in later years by the conversion of stocks of higher denominations held by the national debt commissioners for the savings banks and other government funds. Little better was the result of a more ambitious attempt made by Mr Childers in 1884. His offer (act 47 & 48 Vict. c. 23) extended to the holders of all the 3% stocks, amounting to more than 600 millions, but no attempt was made to compel acceptance. There was offered in exchange for each £100 of 3% stock either £102 of a stock at 21% or £108 of a stock at 24%, both irredeemable for twenty-one years. But the amount exchanged into the new stocks was only 22 millions, of which more than onehalf was stock held by government departments.

1884.

The most important of all the conversions of the British debt was effected by Mr Goschen in 1888. It applied to the whole of the 3% stocks, amounting to a total of £558,000,000, made up as 1888. follows: £323,000,000 of consols, a stock which dated from 1752, when it was formed by the consolidation of a number of minor stocks; £69,000,000 of reduced 3%, of which the nucleus was the stock reduced from 4 to 3% by Pelham's conversion in 1749; £166,000,000 of new 3% % resulting from the conversion of 1844. All the three stocks were, and had been for a considerable time, well over par. But for the past few years they had remained in almost a stationary position, relatively to the upward movement shown in the prices of the government 21% stock, and of the stocks of foreign governments, of British colonies and of the leading municipalities. It was clear that the anticipation of a conversion or redemption scheme was weighing down consols. Direct evidence of this fact was afforded by the course of a new 3% stock, the local loans stock, which Mr Goschen had created in 1887. Though bearing the same interest and resting upon the same ultimate security as consols, this stock, which had been made irredeemable for twentyfive years, rose at once to a higher level of price. The opportunity for a great scheme of conversion had evidently come. The risk to be incurred by government in undertaking the liability to pay off such an enormous body of stock, though less in comparison with the resources of the nation than that which Mr Goulburn had faced in 1844, was still very great, and it was rendered more formidable by the fact that holders of consols and of reduced 3% were entitled at law to a year's notice before their stocks could be redeemed. If that right of notice were to be enforced as regards any large proportion of the stocks, no precaution could adequately guard against the risk of untoward circumstances arising to affect the operation before the year expired. Mr Goschen proposed to offer to the holders of each of the three stocks an exchange at par into a new stock bearing interest at 3% for the first year, at 22% for the next fourteen years and at 2% for twenty years thereafter, the stock to be irredeemable for the whole of that period, namely till 1923. Acceptance was made compulsory for holders of the new 3%, with the alternative of being paid off at par, as they had no claim to receive notice; but it was made optional for the holders of the other two stocks, and a bonus of 5s. % was offered to them as an induce ment to forgo their right of notice. These provisions were duly embodied in the act 51 Vict. c. 2. The terms were accepted by practically all the holders of the new 3% and by the great majority of the holders in consols and reduced 3's, the amount left outstanding being only £42,000,000. To enable that balance to be dealt with, an act was passed providing for the compulsory redemption or conversion of the outstanding stock at the expiry of the statutory notice. The funds required for this further operation were raised by the issue of treasury bills and exchequer bonds, by temporary advances from the bank and from the national debt commissioners, and by the creation of an additional half-million of the new stock. In the result it was only necessary to find cash for paying off dissentients to the amount of £19,000,000. The final outcome of the whole operation was a saving in the annual charge of interest of £1,412,000, increasing to twice that amount after fourteen years.

The conversion of the consols and reduced 3% was greatly facilitated by the exercise of a power, which the act conferred, to pay to recognized agents, such as stockbrokers, bankers and solicitors, a commission of 1s. 6d. % on stocks in respect of which they lodged their clients' assents. These agents were thus afforded an induce ment to give their clients explanation and advice, without which many of the fundholders would probably not have moved in the matter. The commissions paid amounted to more than £234,000, representing stocks to the amount of over £312,000,000. government would not again be confronted with this difficulty of having to give long preliminary notice of the intention to convert or redeem a large portion of the debt, as it was provided by the Conversion Act 1888 that the present consols should be redeemable after 1923 on such notice and in such manner as parliament might direct. (W. BL.; E. W. H.

The

See Leroy-Beaulieu, Traité de la Science des Finances; Rau, Finanzwissenschaft; M'Culloch, On Taxation and the Funding System: Hamilton, Inquiry concerning the Rise and Progress of the English Debt; Taylor, History of Taxation in England: Fenn, Compendium of English and Foreign Funds; Dudley Baxter, National

Debts, and his paper in the Stat. Soc. Jour. (1874).; Sir E. W. Hamilton, Conversion and Redemption (1889). And for statistics of national debts see the Statesman's Year-Book and the Stock Exchange Annual. NATIONALITY, a somewhat vague term, used strictly in international law (see INTERNATIONAL LAW, PRIVATE) for the status of membership in a nation or state (for the conditions of which see STATE, ALLEGIANCE, NATURALIZATION, ALIEN), and in a more extended sense in political discussion to denote ar. aggregation of persons claiming to represent a racial, territorial or some other bond of unity, though not necessarily recognized as an independent political entity. In this latter sense the word has often been applied to such people as the Irish, the Armenians and the Czechs. A "nationality "in this connexion represents a common feeling and an organized claim rather than distinct attributes which can be comprised in a strict definition.

NATIONAL WORKSHOPS (Fr. Ateliers Nationaux), the term applied to the workshops established to provide work for the unemployed by the French provisional government after the revolution of 1848. The political crisis which resulted in the abdication of Louis Philippe was naturally followed, in Paris, by an acute industrial crisis, and this, following the general agricultural and commercial distress which had prevailed throughout 1847, rendered the problem of unemployment in Paris very acute. The provisional government under the influence of one of its members, Louis Blanc, and on the demand of a deputation claiming to represent the people passed a decree (Feb. 25, 1848) from which the following is an extract:

to guarantee the existence of the workmen by work. It undertakes The provisional government of the French Republic undertakes to guarantee work for every citizen.

For the carrying out of this decree, Louis Blanc wanted the formation of a ministry of labour, but this was shelved by his colleagues, who as a compromise appointed a government labour Commission, under the presidency of Louis Blanc, with power of inquiry and consultation only. The carrying out of the decree of Feb. 25th was entrusted to the minister of public works, M. Marie, and various public works 2 were immediately started. The earlier stages of the national works are sufficiently interesting to justify the following detailed account:

"The workman first of all obtained a certificate from the landlord of his house, or furnished apartments, showing his address, whether in Paris or the department of the Seine. This certificate was viséd and stamped by the police commissary of the district. The workman then repaired to the office of the maire of his ward, and, on delivering this document, received in exchange a note of admission to the national works, bearing his name, residence and calling, and enabling him to be received by the director of the workplaces in which vacancies existed. All went well while the number of the unemployed was less than 6000, but as soon as that number was exceeded the workmen of each arrondissement, after having visited all the open works in succession without result, returned to their maire's offices tired, starving and discontented. The workmen had been promised bread when work was not to be had, which was reasonable and charitable; the great mistake was, however, then committed of giving them money, and distributing it in public at the offices of the maires instead of distributing assistance in kind, which might have been done so easily through the agency of the bureaux de bienfaisance. Each maire's office was authorized to pay every unemployed workman 1.50 frs. per day on production of a ticket showing that there was no vacancy for him in the national works. The fixed sum of 2 francs was paid to any workman engaged on the public excavation work, without regard to his age, the work done or his calling. The workman made the following simple calculation, and he made it aloud: The state gives me 30 sous for doing nothing, it pays me 40 sous when I work, so I need only work to the extent of 10 sous.' This was logical....

"The works opened by the minister of public works being far distant from each other, and the workmen not being able to visit them all in turn to make certain that there were no vacancies for them, two central bureaux were established, one at the Halle-auxVeaux under M. Wissocq, the other near the maire's office in the 1 The term is also incorrectly applied to the proposed ateliers sociaux of Louis Blanc (q.v.), state-supported co-operative productive

societies.

* Clearing the trench of Clamart and conveying the earth to Paris for the construction of a railway station on the chemin de fer de l'Ouest; construction of the Paris terminus of the Paris-Chartres railway; improvement of the navigation of the Oise; extension of the Sceaux railway to Orsay.