176 INCREASE OF PRODUCE [CH

of fallow from year to year. Figures exist for Spain, even for

Rumania

and Bulgaria,but not for France. However, the steady increase in roots and fodder crops indicates

what was

/happening.

By

theendofthecentury, fallow

had

been reduced

(to something near the necessary

minimum.

It cannot be al-

together aboUshed; for in certain soils or certain seasons, fallowing

may

be advisable to clean thefields, or unavoidable owingtoweather conditions.

/As

^{aresult,animals ofallkinds}increased inweightandvalue, and most kinds increased also in numbers. Sheep are the sftxception.

From

32,150,000ⁱⁿ 1840 theyfell to 29,500,000in 1862, to 21,100,000 in 1892 and to 16,400,000 ⁱⁿ 1911. This

fall inthe head ofsheep isconspicuous inthe agrarian history ofallWesternEuropesinceabouti860. Ithasbeen

much more

conspicuous in

Germany

than inFrance (see post,_{§ 56).}

Con-

tinental cultivators have never succeeded in fitting the sheep into thesystemof

mixed

arablefarmingaspractised inEngland.

There is no district on the continent which, like Lincolnshire for instance, excels both in corn and sheep.

The

reasons are

many

and can only be suggested here. Chief

among them

^are

the smallness ofthe holdings, their dispersion, and the lackof inclosures.

As commons

and opengrazing land have declined /6heephavedeclined withthem. Butsheep standalone. Between 1862 and 1909 horses ⁱⁿ France increased

from

_2,914,000 to 3,236,000, and swinefrom 6,000,000 to 7,300,000, in spite of

;the decrease of territory in the interval.

The

growth in cattle nasalreadybeennoted.

To

thisstoryofimprovement and growth

some

qualifications i^must be appended.

The

disaster

which

overtook the vineyards in the seventieswillbedealtwithlater. In consequenceofthis disaster,the

work

ofthe closing years ofthenineteenth century was one not of progress, but of recovery and reconstruction.

The work

was well done, yet the areaimdervines early in the twentieth century was

much

less than it had been in 1873.

Owing

tothe extremevariations inthe quality, yield

and

value of vineyards, area is not in itself a satisfactory test. Taking

quality, value, output and

employment

into account, it

may

be said that vine growing was reconstituted

by

1900-5. Also

viii]

INCREASE OF PRODUCE

177 the wine industry

was

re-established on a

new

and

more

^'

scientific basis.

Su^ur^beet growing has been the sport oftariff makers and international agreements. Its historyis exceptionaland highly technical.

The

test of successisneitheracreagenorweight,but the sugar-yield of the roots. France always protected her sugar industry. Partly as a result of protection, acreagegrewsteadi^^

up

to 1901,

when

^it

was

over 800,000.

The

Frenchsugaroutput rose

from

about 50,000 metric tons in 1852-3,toover 500,000 tons in 1892-3

and

over 1,100,000 tons in 1900-2. In the ninetiesFrance

was

bothprotectingthe industry and, in effect, giving abounty

on

export{seepost,^^y).

Under

the international Brusselssugar convention of_1902,bounties ceasedin 1903.

The

effect

was

felt at once. Acreage fell off, and the sugar output, after a

few

years' fluctuations, fell to an annual level varying between 736,000 and 803,000 tons for the years 1907-11.

But

in spite of thesevicissitudes,acomparisonof1907-11 with 1852-3, or even with 1892—3, shows progress enough.

The most

importantreservation to be appendedto the story ofruralprogress is that, inviewofthe possibilities ofmoderii scientific agriculture, thisprogress

was

not so great as itmighty havebeen. Take,astestcases,wheat andpotatoes,twostandard

and

essentialcrops.

The

figures

on

whichthe comparisons are based

were

collected

ini9iiori9i2. They

representtherefore the final position of Frenchnational agriculture in thecentury 1815-1914. Itappearsthat inthoseyearsBelgiumand Holland got nearly twice the weight of wheat from a given area that France got;

Germany

rather

more

than half as

much

again;

Great Britain ratherless thanhalf as

much

again. Forpotatoes Holland'syieldperacre

was

considerably

more

than twicethat of France. Belgium

was

onlyalittlebehindHolland.

Germany had

notquitetwice France'syield. GreatBritain'swastoFrance's as if ^{to i<}

There

are palliatives of these unfavourable

com-

parisons. France growsso

much

wheat that she cannotafford to reserveonly her picked^{areas for it,as} for instance

Germany

does. Southern France ^isnot

by

naturea goodpotato country.

Figures might have been ^{selected rather}

more

favourable to France. But

when

^{all has been said,} and however the figures

178

AGRICULTURE AND TARIFFS

^[ch.

arehandled, itremainstruethat,largely,nodoubt,owingtothe extent and character ofher peasant agriculture, she is behind her neighbours ^{in arable}farming.

And

itmightbeaddedthat, excellentasherdairyfarmingis, itisinferiorto that of

Denmark.

§ 47. So farthe agrarian history ofFranceinthe railway age hasbeentreatedas awhole. Itremainstobreak thehistory

up

into its sections, to follow the short period vicissitudes of agriculture, and to see

how

difficulties were accentuated or overcome.

^

^{In the years fromabout 1855 to 1875,an}

^immense

^stimulus

was given to the production of the two great staples, wheat and^vpine. Englishjreetrade andtherailw^s_levelled

up

wheat prices to theEnglish pricea.11o_ver3'^estern_Eurp^__duringthe sSfiesi"^I'opulation was growing everywhere, and the taste for wheatenbreadwas growing fasterthan population.

The

^Black

^Sea lands had not yet been eifectively opened, and American grain did not beginto flood theEuropeanmarketswsxA., firstly

,

the railwaynetwork oftheprairies had beencreated(1865-75), and,secondly,theoceantramphadappearedasa successful grain carrier (about 1875).

There

was therefore a greatextension of wheat growingeverywhere. Between 1850and 1869,the

amount

of land under wheat in France increased about 33 per ^cent., wheat being raised from land hitherto considered only fit for ''inferiorcrops, or fornocropatall. Betweeni860and_{1870, the} land under the vine also increased and the output of vnne increased greatly.

The main

cause

was

the growing domestic consumption which followed the building of the railways.

A

stibsidiarycausewastheseriesofcommercialtreaties,beginning withthe

Cobden

treatyofi860,which openedthemarkets,first ofEngland,andthenofothercountriestoFrenchvnnes.

The

French wineoutput

mounted

steadily,withaninterrup- tion inthe earlyfiftiesduetotheravagesofthe oidium fungus, untilittouchedits

maximum

figures

—

^{^nearly}70,000,000hecto- litresin 1869 and 1874, ^nd 78,000,000 in 1875.

(The

drop to 36,000,000 in 1873, in these years of

maximum

output, well illustrates the great variability of vintages as

compared

with harvests.) Butalready the vineshad

begun

to feelthe attacks of the phylloxera, a plant louse akin to the aphis, and during the

viii]

AGRICULTURE AND TARIFFS

₁₇₉

nextdecadethe French wineindustrywas struggling forexist- ence.

At

firstit

seemed

asiftheattackswerelocalandincidental, likethose ofanyotherinsectpest. Butthey returnedandspread year

by

year, untilwhole districts weredevastated and in

some

cases whole departments lost their vines. Every suggested

remedy and

preventive

was

tried with no great success, until atlastalarge

number

of vineyardswerereplantedwithimported vinestocks

which

were found to resist the phylloxera. Butthe

wine

industry took twenty years to recover.

The

area under vines fell almost continuously

from

1873 to the end of the century, the total fall being 33 per ^cent. After the

maximum

yield of 1875 (78,000,000 hectolitres)

came

ten years(1876-85) in

which

the

maximum was

55,000,000 and the

minimum

26,500,000, then ten (1886-95) ^{^^}

which

the

maximum was

51,000,000

and

the

minimum

23,000,000.

Then

at length the turn

came

;foralthough the vineyardareawasstillfalling,better

management

and better wine

making

had greatly increased the yield.

The

concluding figures are as follows:

Maximum

yield

Minimum

yield 1896—1905 67,400,000(in 1900) 32,300,000 (in1898) 1906—₁₉₁₃ 66,100,000(in 1907) 28,500,000 (in1910)

Inthe leanyears after 1880 the French winetrade

had

been put

on

a

new

basis. Before 1877 ^there

had

been no imports

worth

mentioning, apart

from

small quantities of the finer table wines.

Now,

ordinary wine began to be imported in bulk, in part for direct consumption, in part for coupage

—

mixture with French wine beforesale.

The

import^ofordinary

wine

rushed

up from

600,000 hectolitresin 1877, ^{a figure}only equalled once before, to 7,000,000 in 1880 and 12,000,000 in 1887. This wine

was

mostly Italian. In 1888 begana Franco- Italiantariff

war which

firstcheckedthetradeandlaterdiverted alargepart of^it

from

ItalytoSpain.

By

theendofthecentury the recovery of the Frenchvineyards beganto tell. After 1896 imports of ordinary wine seldom got above 8,000,000 hecto-

litres. In 1901,afterthegreatvintage of 1900, theywere

down

to 3,350,000,

and

the averageforthe ten years 1904-13

was

well below 7,000,000.

Whilst France

had

been a great wine exporting country, her

i8o

AGRICULTURE AND ^TARIFFS

^[ch.

vine growers had been with her wine merchants in the small free tradecamp.

They

had supportedthetreatieswith England of 1786 and i860 against the manufacturers, because those treaties widened the wine market. After 1880,

when

France had

become

onthebalance a regularwineimporter, theylearnt to sympathise with the manufacturers.

They

began

—

^{^it is} the recognised opening to the

game

of protection

—

^with agitation against the fraudulent and

unwholesome

wines, raisin juice and potato spirit, which certainly were

coming

in. Raisins themselves were suspect, as fraudulent wines were

made

also athome. Foragood

many

years, however, after 1881 France, being

bound by

commercial treaties, could not alter her moderate import duties.

A

^little was done>

"on

hygienic grounds," to check the fraudulent wine trade, native and foreign; but for the time wine growers were left to join in the chorus which was

now

going

up

in favour ofprotection from everyagricultural interest.

With

^the late seventies had

begun

that world-wide fall in prices which continued, broadlyspeaking, until the end ofthe nineteenthcentury.

Many

causeswere at

work

(seepost,

§ 93), butthe

main

causes, in the"agriculturalsphere,werethe railway, the marine engine and the telegraph, working internationally.

And

the article most affected in the early days was wheat.

Before i860 France had been on the average self-sufficing in wheat. Between 1861 and 1880 she had an exportable surplus in five years, and had to import

more

or less intheremaining

\fifteen.

The

bad harvests of 1878-9 which she shared with England had necessitated heavy imports, or what

seemed

heavy to

Frenchmen, unaccustomed to get their bread

from

abroad.

The

figures were 18,000,000 hectolitres in 1878, 29,000,000 in 1879, and 27,000,000 ^{in 1880.} For comparison it

may

be noted thatthe average annual production ofwheat in France for the decade 1876-85, was 102,000,000 hectolitres.

The

Frenchproducer found that instead ofgettinghighprices, the compensationordinarilyexpectedfor a poor harvest, his prices in 1878-80 were actually lower than they had been in 1877.

The

result was a regular tariff campaign conducted

by

the

VIII]

AGRICULTURE AND TARIFFS

i8i Societe des Agriculteurs de France,

who

denounced most ofall

the

American

invasion. Their first campaign

may

be said to have failed. In the general tariff of

May

1881, foodstuffs wereleftfreeorsubjectonlytosmall duties,exceptsuchthings as coffee

and

cocoa

which

paidstiffrevenue duties.

Various commercial treaties were arranged on the basis of thistariff,

which

prevented serious alterations initfora decade.

But

the governmentnever

bound

itselftogiveanother country any special terms affecting either cereals or meat, so that policywith regard to

them was

leftopen.

As

theyears passed

and

the price fall continued, complaints

came

in about one agricultural

commodity

after another.

German

and Austrian sugar helped

by

an export bounty, Japanese silk, Scandinavian timber, were

added

to

American

wheat and cattle and

"hog

products," and Italian or Spanish wine.

Meat

imports, like those of adulterated wine, could be checked

on

grounds of health. Already in 1881 government

showed

its complaisance

by

forbidding

American

pork.

Three

yearslater,thegrievance of the beet sugargrowersand makers was

met by

acomplicated rearrangement of the sugar taxes, and an increased surtax on foreign sugar.

The

rearrangement did not include an export bountyinso

many

words. Butthe tax was levied,in imitation of

Germany, on

the weight of the beets

when

delivered for

manufacture^. Providedthesugaryieldofthe rootswasincreased

,

by

betterfarmingandbetterhandling,this lefta certain

amount

of thesugarpracticallyuntaxed.

Thus

a stockofdutyfreesugar could be created

which

might be shipped to foreign markets.

In 1885

and

again in 1887 the low duties on cattle were

pushed

up. Rye, barley

and

oatsbeganto betaxedin 1885, for thefirsttimesince 1861.

The

flourdutywasraisedbothin 1885

and

in 1887.

Wheat was

dealtwith in 1885.

Under

the 1881 tariffitpaid only60centimes per 100kilos {is. id. perquarter).

This

was

raised to 3 francs in 1885 andto 5 francs in 1887.

The

figures belowillustrate the wheatposition at this time.