MEETING AN ECONOMIC CRISIS 59 



present a subject deserving the special considera- 

 tion of those who are in any way interested in 

 the question of agricultural progress in general. 

 The historian of the movement, M. le Comte 

 de Rocquigny, has given in Les Syndzcats 

 Agi'icoles et leur CEuvre, a striking account of 

 the conditions under which it was initiated. 

 Towards the year 1884, (he writes) : — 



After having enjoyed a long period of prosperity, our 

 agricultural producers began to suffer experience of which 

 no one could see the end. The French market, which, by 

 reason of the development of the means of transport, was 

 no longer protected by the natural barrier of distance, 

 began to be flooded with foreign commodities produced at 

 a cost that defied all competition. Our lands, exhausted 

 by centuries of cultivation, had no chance against the 

 productions of virgin soils, or of countries more favourably 

 situated in regard to taxation, cost of labour, etc. The 

 wheat of North America, India, and Russia, the wool of 

 Australia and La Plata, the wines of Spain and Italy, and 

 even the cattle of Italy, Germany, the Argentine Republic, 

 etc., took, little by little, on our markets the place of our 

 home supplies, and the simple threat of their being im- 

 ported was sufficient to effect a lowering of prices. . . . 

 The national market existed no longer, and on a market 

 which had become universal, and was affected by the 

 slightest fluctuations that reverberated among the great 

 centres of the world, the Trench cultivator offered an easy 

 prey to the speculations of international commerce. 



These new economic conditions, which there was every 

 reason to regard as permanent, imposed on the agricul- 

 tural industry a profound evolution. 



