APPLETONS'I 



POPULAR SCIENC-bJ 



MONTHLY. 



MAY, 1898 



THE QUESTION OF WHEAT. ^ -6 



By WORTHINGTON C. FORD, ' ., ^ .^- 



CHIKF OF THE BUREAU OF 8TATI8TICS, TRBASUET DEPARTMENT, WABHINGTOK, D. C. 



II.— CONTINENTAL EUROPE: FRANCE. 



I'N passing from a market where no customs duties are imposed 

 upon foreign breadstuffs to markets where such duties play an 

 important part in controlling competition from abroad, a political 

 rather than a commercial question is encountered. The form of 

 protection which seeks to encourage the home production of food, 

 and especially of grain, is of very early origin and of very wide appli- 

 cation. It ranges from the almost brutal disregard of the wants of a 

 neighboring nation implied by an embargo on exports of cereals to 

 the light and insignificant registration duty, intended to assure a good 

 quality of imported wheat. It runs from duties on imports so high 

 as to permit of a commerce only in the face of actual famine, to the 

 revenue duty that has no immediate purpose in hindering purchases 

 abroad, but regards the necessities of the treasury. History offers 

 a remarkable collection of experience in attempts to regulate the 

 grain trade; but it offers a record of a far larger number of failures 

 than of successes attending these attempts. 



Throughout continental Europe wheat is generally subject to 

 customs duties on importation, and the prevailing tendency in recent 

 years has been toward higher duties. In five countries no duties are 

 imposed; three are importers — Denmark, Belgium, and Holland — 

 and two are exporters — Russia and Roumania. Of countries taxing 

 wheat only one is an exporter, Austria-Hungary, where the duty is 

 about seventy-five cents a metric quintal. Germany collects under 

 her general tariff about one dollar and twenty cents the quintal, and 



