A FRENCH PUBLIC WORKS SCHEME.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 5071, 9 May 1878, Page 3

A FRENCH PUBLIC WORKS SCHEME.

A grand scheme of public works has been introduced in the Chamber of Deputies by M. de Freycinet, the Minister for that department. The ostensible object of the vast undertaking is to develop the material resources of the country, but perhaps it is not uncharitable to say that a desire to render the Republic popular among the working classes is not altogether foreign to the proposal. However, that the project will, if carried into effect, have a powerful effect in augmenting the already, I might almost say, incalculable wealth of France, there can hardly be a question; and from this point of view alone the value of the scheme is \ notable. M. do Freycinet's bill contemplates the construction by the State of nine thousand miles of new railways, at an average estimated cost of £13,500 per mile, or £120,000,000 in all, together with a further expenditure of £40,000,000 in making new canals, deepening rivers so as to extend the navigable part of their course, and in improving harbors and constructing new ones where required for the ready shipment of the produce and other merchandise of the district. Some -«fof these railways (which are to be suggested to the Government by a Survey Commission appointed in the six districts of France to report on the subject) are to be for purely local purposes, while others are to be primarily military lines for the defence of the country. There is no need to dwell on the great value of such a scheme of public works to France as developing alike her trade and her agricultural and manufacturing resources. France is still much behind England in the means of rapid and cheap conveyance of traffic, and as so large a 'portion of her territory is at a considerable distance from the seaboard, the lack of easy and economical conveyance is a more serious obstacle to a profitable development of agriculture especially, and also, though in a lesser degree perhaps, of manufactures. The scheme now brought forward by Government will involve an expenditure of 160 millions sterling, but the construction of the railways is to be carried out first, costing 120 millions. This large sum is to be .raised by an internal loan upon the security of these new railways, in addition to that of the State itself. It is to be raised by instalments, extending over the next ten years, by the end of which period it is expected that the new railways will be fully constructed ; and the repayment of the loan is also to be made by instalments. M. de Freycinet states that 120 millions sterling represent the savings of the French people, the increment of the wealth of France, for two years, and he thinks the people can therefore well afford to lend the sum asked for .Jjfc, the State out of their ten years' savings. The Minister is most sanguine as to the success of this great enterprise, and in financial circles his proposal has . been very cordially received.