CHAPTER V 

 FRANCE 



TO the agriculturists of Great Britain, ac- 

 customed to regard the condition of their 

 industry as one of almost hopeless depression, 

 there must appear to be something remarkably 

 strange in some observations made by M. Meline 

 at a gathering held at the Musee Social, Paris, 

 on October 31st, 1897. when the results of a 

 competition among the Syndicats Agricoles of 

 France were announced. " It is," said the French 

 Minister of Agriculture, " a curious fact, and 

 well worthy of remark, that you agriculturists 

 have nothing to learn from those you have called 

 to meet you here. It is from that world of 

 agriculture which for so long seemed to be given 

 over to a spirit of inveterate routine, and to be 

 deprived of all initiative, that there has pro- 

 ceeded the spark which should regenerate the 

 modern world. It is the agricultural interest 

 which has been the first to understand and apply 

 the grand formula of solidarity and mutuality 



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