6 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the home price of wheat had fallen below the minimum rate return- 

 ing a profit to the farmer twenty francs the hectolitre, he did not 

 look for a continuance of that rate. 



After fifteen years it is simple to test such predictions, but it is 

 only necessary to say that in only one year since 1884 has the price 

 of wheat in France touched twenty francs the hectolitre — in 1891 — 

 and for the other fourteen years has ruled much under that rate. 

 Nor did the Government accept the conclusions of its commission, 

 for it imposed a higher duty on imported wheat, raising the rate 

 from sixty centimes the quintal, at which rate it was prior to 1884, 

 to three francs a quintal, and in 1887 to five francs a quintal. These 

 moves were based upon the growing restlessness of the peasant pro- 

 prietor, on whom fell the brunt of competition in wheat growing 

 from ^ftussia and the United States. He had seen the price falling, 

 and had been subject to bad seasons as well as a loss of market from 

 importations. He had run into debt through the failure of his crop, 

 and he had incurred losses by entering speculative " companies " of 

 one kind or another, that promised high returns and then failed dis- 

 astrously. He found it difiicult to accommodate himself to wheat 

 selling from nineteen to seventeen francs a hectolitre, but was suc- 

 cessful in the attempt, as was proved by his refusal to obtain a further 

 increase of duty on wheat in 1892, when a revision of the tariff oc- 

 curred. Secure in his own holding, and protected from any con- 

 cession by way of reciprocity to his neighbors and rivals, he was yet 

 slowly fomenting an agitation that was to plead now for higher 

 duties on all agricultural products and now for a rehabilitation of 

 silver. The year of famine (1891) led to a temporary reduction in 

 the duty from five francs to three, but the exceptional conditions 

 leading to this concession to the consumer of wheat soon passed. 



A glance at the table of production and imports given above does 

 not betray any influence of these successive changes in the rates of 

 duty on imported wheat. The price of wheat was controlled not 

 by conditions in France, but by conditions acting throughout the 

 commercial world. It was even asserted that the cost of producing 

 a hectolitre of wheat in France had risen in recent years, and now 

 stood at the high figure of twenty-six francs. The market price 

 obtainable was only 17.87 francs in 1892, 16.55 francs in 1893, and 

 15.21 francs in 1894, and abundant crops at home and abroad threat- 

 ened even lower prices. With such pressure of competition the 

 agrarian party acquired strength and influence, and in February, 

 1894, obtained an increase in the duty on foreign wheat to seven 

 francs the quintal. In less than fifteen years the duty had thus been 

 raised from a nominal rate of sixty centimes to seven francs the 

 quintal. 



