Leading Articles in the Reviews. 



443 



THE BREAD CRISIS IN FRANCE. 



The Soplemfltr number of Lectures pour Tous 

 publishes an article on the problem of Dear 

 Bread in France. 



THE CAUSES. 



While Germany has been suffering from a 

 meat crisis France has been experiencing a 

 wheat crisis. The French, we are lold, eat 

 enormous quantities of bread. No other people, 

 except perhaps the Canadians, consume so 

 much. In the past century there were several 

 years in France resembling those symbolised by 

 the ill-favoured and lean kine of Pharaoh's 

 dream. In 1817, 1847, 1856, and in 1862 there 

 was famine with disorder more or less severe, 

 and in 1868 famine was sore in the land in 

 Algeria. The amount of wheat which France 

 produces varies a good deal, even when the area 

 under wheal cultivation is the same. In 1904, 

 for instance, the yield was 87,400,000 quintals; 

 in 1907 it reached 108,200,000 over the same 

 area. A metric quintal is said to represent 100 

 kilos., or over 2 cwt. In the present year the 

 wheat crisis is due to various causes. The 

 harvest of 191 1 was not a very bad one 

 (87,000,000 quintals), but the crop was still 

 insutlicient for France's consumption. 



This insufficiency of wheat grown in France, 

 together with the high price paid for foreign 

 wheat, is given as the chief reason of the recent 

 crisis. One cause of the high price which had 

 to be paid for the wheat imported was a strike 

 in December last on the Argentine railways. 

 This affected the French market, for France 

 had to get her supply elsewhere than from 

 Argentina. The closing of the Dardanelles also 

 deprived France for some time of her supply 

 from Russia. 



THE RE.MUDV. 



What is the remedy for such a crisis as that 

 which France has recently passed through? 

 Why cannot more foreign wheat be diverted to 

 the French market? Why must France pay 

 more for it than London pays? The reply is 

 Protection, which F"rance clings to. For the 

 protection of French agriculture a duty of 7 fr. 

 per quintal is levied on all imported wheat. The 

 suppression or the temporary suspension of this 

 duty was demanded and refused. In 1898 such 

 a suspension was granted for three months, and 

 the consequences are stated to have been disas- 

 trous. During the three years which followed 

 not only did the price of bread not go down, 

 but the growers were oliliged to sell their wheat 

 at prices which could not be rcmuner.itive. The 

 Government is therefore f)pposed to suspensictn 

 or reduction of the duty on foreign wheat as 

 a remedy for the crisis. Suppression of the 



duty, it is argued, is neither a remedy nor a 

 palliative. It is hoped that in a very few years 

 France will be able to grow all the wheat she 

 requires. In less than a century the production 

 has nearly doubled, though the area of land 

 cultivated has not been increased in like pro- 

 portion. The increased production per hectar 

 is remarkable, and is due to improvements in 

 the method of cultivation. Naturally the crops 

 vary in different regions. At the present 

 moment France grows annually 214 kilos per 

 inhabitant, while the consumption per head is 

 240 kilos. England produces only 35 kilos 

 per head, and has to buy 57,000,000 quintals 

 per annum, or 16,000 tons a day, of wheat 

 from abroad, which explains why she must 

 attach so much importance, not only to her 

 navy, but to her position as mistress of the 

 seas. France is a long way off such a position 

 as this, but all the same, she must endeavour 

 to meet her own requirements in the matter 

 of wheat. For her supplementary supply she 

 now draws largely on her North African 

 colonies. 



WHO ARE THE JAPANESE.? 



Mr. Arthur May Knapp asks the question 

 and proceeds to adumbrate an answer in the 

 Atlantic MontJily. The writer suggests that : — 



Japan has so far merely won her place among the great 

 Powers of the world. Not yet by any means has she 

 surmounted the bar of racial prejudice and thus entered 

 the charmed circle of Western society, to which birth 

 and breeding are the only talismans securing admission. 

 (Jn the score of breeding, indeed, there ought to be no 

 question whatever as to the qualifications of the nation 

 whose age-long training in the courtesies of life has given 

 her preeminence in the practice of what we concede to be 

 the finest flower of civilisation. There remains, there- 

 fore, only the question of birth to consider. 



Mr. Knapp satisfies himself that the Japanese 

 originated in Western Asia, migrating during 

 the course of centuries eastward through Mon- 

 golia, finally making a permanent settlement in 

 the islands of the rising sun. The article con- 

 tains an interesting comparison between the 

 culture of the Greeks and Japanese, which are 

 both pervaded by like sentiment, and even as 

 Greece represents the highest phase of Western 

 civilisation, so in Jap.in, 



undisturbed by the dynastic struggles and barbarian incur- 

 sions which swept away the old-time civilisation of the 

 Orient, the Island Nation became the real repository of 

 ancient Asiatic thought and culture. 



Mks. I'!. Lvrir.LTON, among the stories of 

 Irish servants she recounts in the Ocioiier 

 Nineteenth Century, lells of a little m.iid who 

 appeared after breakf.ist with the startling 

 question : " Will I sthrip, ma'am? " (;\nglicd, 

 " .Shall I clear away? ") 



