ting the age fixed in the original agreement, of
a pension or annuity proportioned to the amount of his actual payments
and to his age at the time when the incapacity is medically and legally
established.

Every year a certain amount is voted by the Chamber as a subvention to
this fund, and out of this annual appropriation these 'premature
pensions' may be increased by the committee in charge of the fund. This
is a sort of practical State socialism beyond a doubt. But it is at
least as respectable as the expenditure made in this year's budget of
6,500,000 francs, or about one fifth of the whole amount of the French
naval pension list, on annuities of indemnification 'to the victims of
the _coup d'etat_ of 1851,' the _coup d'etat_ of 1851 having been simply
a collision between the Legislature of that year, trying to suppress the
Executive, with the Executive trying to suppress the Legislature, with
the result that the Executive carried the day, and that the French
people, by an overwhelming majority, approved the victory of the
Executive.

Why the socialistic principles at the bottom of the National Retiring
Fund for workmen should not be extended to others than working-men it is
not easy to see. The French pension-list is now very heavy. It figures
in this year's budget at nearly a hundred millions of francs, exclusive
of the military and naval pensions, which amount to about one hundred
and twenty-five millions more, and without counting the _debits de
tabac_, which are in fact a kind of pensions used freely by deputies and
other functionaries of influence to reward services of all sorts. Of
these about two hundred were given away in 1888, the list filling five
pages of the huge reports of the Finance Ministry.

The National Retiring Fund for Old Age is managed by a high committee of
sixteen, which must include two deputies, two state councillors, two
presidents of mutual aid societies, and one manufacturer. Workmen who
choose to avail themselves of the fund may break off and renew their
payments into it as they like, and increase or diminish the amount of
their annual deposits without affecting by any interruption the value of
their previously acquired interest in the fund. Deposits may be made in
the name of any person at or after the age of three years, so that a
father may in this way, if he likes, form a small property for his
children. The authorisation of the father, however, is not required to
validate depos