344 



FRANCE. 



oring for a tax on foreign grain. The budget 

 showed a deficit which could not be staved ofi 7 

 by any transfer of accounts, and which would 

 necessitate a new loan unless new sources of 

 revenue were found. To impose new taxes for 

 revenue purposes alone on the eve of elections 

 M. Ferry frankly declared would be impolitic. 

 For the double purpose of propitiating the 

 farmers, and restoring the balance in the bud- 

 get, the Cabinet was at last induced to propose 

 an additional duty on imported grain. The 

 duty of 5 francs per quintal demanded by the 

 protectionists was considered a mischievous 

 rate. The committee of the Chamber, which 

 reported the bill in December, recommended 

 raising the duty on wheat from 60 centimes to 

 2 francs 40 centimes, and on flour from 1 franc 

 20 centimes to 7 francs. The proposed duty 

 on wheat is over 12 per cent, on its average 

 value. It was argued that this would not 

 raise the price of bread, but would be borne 

 by the middle-men. The Government also 

 proposed an import duty on cattle. 



The Economic Crisis. The Government was 

 confronted with a new difficulty in 1884, aris- 

 ing from the suffering condition of the work- 

 ing-classes in the industrial centers, and espe- 

 cially in Paris. The subsidence of the building 

 fever, and the decline in the export demand 

 for the finished products of French skill and 

 taste, produced an industrial crisis which lasted 

 many months before the working-people de- 

 manded the intervention of the state for their 

 relief. In January excited meetings began to 

 be held in the Salle Le~vis. The Anarchists 

 and the disciples of Karl Marx denounced the 

 bourgeoisie, and preached a social revolution, 

 while the moderate Socialists, called Possi- 

 blists, asked for a donation of 25,000,000 

 francs to the syndical chambers or trades- 

 unions of Paris to enable them to take more 

 contracts. These trades-unions are co-opera- 

 tive associations, as well as organizations for 

 the protection of the general interests of the 

 workmen in the various trades. Some of them, 

 the paviors' corporation, for instance, execute 

 Government contracts and divide the profits 

 among the laborers. Their business facilities 

 were considerably augmented by the bequest 

 some years ago of an estate which was to be 

 kept as a fund, out of which they could obtain 

 advances. The Possiblists also suggested that 

 the Government should redeem the property 

 of poor people held in pawn by the Mont de 

 Pi6t6. Deputy Tony Revillon presented in the 

 Chamber an address of the breadless laborers 

 assembled in the Salle Le"vis, in which they 

 demanded that the Government should pro- 

 vide work. A delegation of the unemployed 

 which waited upon Dr. Clemenceau and his 

 associates of the Extreme Left, when asked 

 to say what remedial measures they desired, 

 responded that it was the business of their 

 representatives in the Legislature, not of the 

 workmen, to devise legislative remedies. M. 

 Langlois offered a resolution, which was 



adopted by the Chamber, in' favor of an in- 

 vestigation, and the employment of every 

 means by the Government for the ameliora- 

 tion of the condition of the working-class. 

 The situation was aggravated by the strike in 

 the coal-mines of Anzin, which left 2,000 fam- 

 ilies without food. This strike was brought 

 on by reduction of wages below living rates. 

 The syndical chambers of workmen through- 

 out France came to the assistance of the strik- 

 ers, who had the general sympathy of the 

 people. Besides the dynamite outrages which 

 caused much alarm in 1883, there was no dis- 

 turbance. The Chambers passed a bill provid- 

 ing for boards of arbitration to settle future 

 disputes between mine-owners and workmen. 

 In April, when the company had worked off 

 its accumulated stock, and the last means at 

 the disposal of the miners were exhausted, the 

 long strike at Anzin came to an end. In the 

 summer demonstrations of breadless laborers 

 took place in the open air. It was M. Ferry's 

 policy to suppress such manifestations in the 

 streets of Paris, while allowing full license of 

 speech in-doors. A law against seditious cries 

 and demonstrations on the public streets was 

 carried in the early part of the session. On 

 November 23, after a noisy meeting in the 

 Salle Le~vis, a collision with the police took 

 place on the boulevard when the workmen 

 attempted to form in procession. On Decem- 

 ber T another riotous meeting was held, in 

 which a struggle took place for the chair, the 

 conveners of the meeting being outnumbered 

 by Socialists of a more radical cast. In May 

 the police prevented the erection of a monu- 

 ment to the fallen communards on the spot 

 presented by the Municipal Council in Pere 

 Lachaise cemetery. In the Paris Municipal 

 Council the question of the price of bread was 

 brought up by the working-class representa- 

 tives. The different sections of the labor party 

 cast nearly 38,000 votes in the municipal elec- 

 tions of 1884, three times as many as in 1881, 

 the Possiblists scoring 33,604 votes, the Blan- 

 qnists 3,219, and the Guedists, the noisy advo- 

 cates of a social cataclysm, only 867. The 

 poor complained that the 1,800 master-bakers 

 of Paris, by combinations among themselves, 

 kept up the price of bread, notwithstanding 

 the fall in the price of wheat. They also neg- 

 lected machinery and improved ovens, which 

 would greatly lessen the cost of manufacture, 

 content with the profits secured through the 

 ring. The Socialist Councilors proposed that 

 the municipality should establish public bak- 

 eries, and thus insure fair wages to journey- 

 men, and provide the people with cheap bread. 

 The Municipal Council, though not willing to 

 go to such a length in state Socialism, adopted 

 the underlying principle by returning to the 

 ancient practice of fixing a maximum price 

 for bread. The subject of securing improved 

 dwellings for the poor by state intervention 

 was also pressed before the Municipal Council 

 by the representatives of the labor party. A 



