POPULATION AND TAXATION.

Colonist, Volume LI, Issue 12488, 15 March 1909, Page 3

POPULATION AND TAXATION.

A FRENCH DIFFICULTY,

[Press Association-^Copyuwht.]

Received March 14, 4.30 p.m. London ,March 13. Router's Paris correspondent reports that M. Caillaux's difficulties are increasing, owing to the stationary population and the consoquently augmented burdens of taxation. The actual deficit is two and a half millionsterling. The estimates for the_ coming year foreshadow an extra nineteen millions of taxation.

FThe seriousness of the case for France was lately pointed out by M. de Foville,.who said: "The latest figures prove that France, as a nation, is slowl?-but surely dying. In 10C I years the birth-rate has fallen from l 32 per cent per 1000 to 19.7, the present moment^-for the first time in history, and in France alone among the nations-the deaths exceed the births. The excess. of births over deaths in 1902 was 84,000, and has declined rapiSSso^ripe^^. million inhabitants and is •• content ■' with half that number. Jn 1875 .the population of Germany exceeded that out counting Germans abroad. As to the causel, the writer contends that iney are political and economical, . as well as moral: The law is lax, and it Cs mldo^divorce ridiculously easy, ands winks at pernicious teachings. Nothing, in fact is being done to arreTthe gradual extinction of a great ra,cei]