A PARLIAMENT OF AGRICULTURISTS 63 



country. The Union Centrale has not secured 

 the adhesion of all the agricultural associations 

 throughout France, but it represents 1,126 of 

 them, with a membership estimated at 350,000, 

 and its annual conferences in Paris may be re- 

 garded as the Lower House of a French Agri- 

 culturists' Parliament, the Upper House being 

 the Societe des Agriculteurs. When the resolu- 

 tions adopted by the one body have been ap- 

 proved by the other, and passed on to the 

 Ministers or other authorities, they represent 

 a weight of agricultural opinion to which there 

 is nothing to correspond in Great Britain. 



The Union Centrale in Paris has been supple- 

 mented by forty provincial and other minor 

 federations. Most of these also hold annual 

 conferences, at which, as in Paris, questions 

 affecting all kinds of agricultural interests are 

 discussed. Nor are the views of such provincial 

 unions to be despised, considering that the Union 

 du Sud-est, for example, alone comprises 303 

 affiliated associations, which have a total of 

 80,000 members. According to the Annuaire 

 des Syndicats Prqfessionnels, published by the 

 Minister of Commerce, the number of agricul- 

 tural associations in France whose formation had 

 been officially notified up to January 1st, 1903, 

 was 2,438, and the total membership was 



