With regard to taxation, both countries inherit vast debts accumulated by previous wars. The Franco-German War cost France altogether about as much as England had to pay for the great contest with Napoleon the First. Taxation is heavier in France, and every year there is a deficit. Even if the present peace were to continue indefinitely, it is so costly that French finances must succumb beneath the strain of it. The difference between the two nations is that England can go on indefinitely as she is living now, in times of peace, whilst France cannot. A great conflict for national existence might utterly ruin both. Imagine an additional debt, for each, of a thousand millions sterling, the possible cost of the next European war! [Sidenote: Freedom from Civil Discord.] [Sidenote: English Courtesy.] [Sidenote: French Political Hatred.] The next condition that I mentioned as essential to national happiness was freedom from civil discord of any dangerous acuteness. Now, although the French have shown considerable, even admirable self-restraint since 1871, so that civil war has never broken out amongst them in spite of much suppressed excitement, I think it is evident that there has been, and that there is yet, much less danger of civil war in England. Such an evil is still possible in France, though with the present orderly French temper it is not probable; in England, during this century at least, it seems absolutely out of the question. Civil discord exists in France to the degree of dangerous acuteness, in England only to the degree that makes it bitter and unpleasant. French political dissension leads to personal rancour, which is constantly breaking forth in insults and in duels; in England the forms of courtesy between parties are still in some measure preserved. If a distinguished English statesman dies, or is seriously ill, his opponents express and feel regret for his loss, or sympathy with his sufferings; but French political hatred follows a man even to the grave. In a word, Frenchmen of opposite political tenets are really enemies; Englishmen who sit opposite to each other in the House are political adversaries only, and may meet pleasantly at the same dinner-table. The superior amenity of English public life is clear proof of its more successful working. It shows that both parties have something in common--their country--and that they do not lose sight of the national welfare, though they differ as to the measures supposed to be most conducive to it. [Sidenote: The Arts and Sciences.] [Sidenote: Applied Science.] [Sidenote: Railways.] [Sidenote: Balloons.] [Sidenote: Military Inventions.] [Sidenote: Agriculture.] [Sidenote: Ship-building.] [Sidenote: Pleasure-boats.]