26 



accommodate us, or else that there is an advantage. Now if there is an 

 advantage inherent in one box, that same advantage is in a million boxes. 

 Now the question arose, is there an advantage? And I began to figure on 

 it, and for a time it was a very difficult thing for me to solve, and finally 

 I came to my conclusion. I was met on every street and corner and high- 

 way by bands of soldiers. Now who pays for the marching of these men? 

 The government; and that is an element in a box of raisins, even. Now 

 upon closer inquiry, who owns this land? It was a seed renter; above him 

 the speculative renter; above him the lord; and above the lord the great 

 navy they have in Spain, second only to England's; above the great navy 

 the army; above the vast standing army, the aristocracy; and above the 

 aristocracy, the king; and every item there counteracts the dollar a day 

 and board. That is either a fact, and truth, or it is not a fact, and false. 

 How then is it that the raisins are sold from California against the Malaga 

 raisin in the City of London? When in the City of London, I spoke of this 

 very thing, and wanted them to prove why it was not an advantage to 

 handle our raisins. They say you can handle it in New York, because you 

 stopped there; but if you go further you will pay an extra charge, and by 

 the time you get to London, you have lost your advantage. I say yes; but 

 as we come here you go there. If we have an expense coming here, you 

 have an expense going there, so we are even. Now it is a matter of public 

 notoriety that an attempt was made, and the raisin was brought to London 

 for the first time. I find here from the " San Francisco Bulletin," under the 

 head of "Trade and Finance," on October seventeenth, what if true I con- 

 sider to be a most important item of news for the State of California. It 

 says: U A few weeks ago we noted the shipment of three carloads of California 

 raisins to London, direct from Fresno; other lots followed from points further 

 south; these shipments have since been heard from. They brought better prices 

 in London than the best Malaga layers. The shipments have been a good ad- 

 vertisement, and have resulted in orders for raisins from Amsterdam, Vienna, 

 and other European cities" 



In Europe, when the king dies, they say "The king is dead; long live 

 the king." There was a time when France supplied the world with wine; 

 France has no more wine to export — there is no question about it; more 

 especially as 95 per cent of the wines used throughout the world is the vin 

 ordinaire, not that wine which sells for five or ten or fifteen dollars a bottle, 

 that royalty has for its table, but the wines used by the people of the world. 

 There is not a meal taken in Europe unless wine is found on the table; 

 now France supplied 95 per cent of that wine, to-day she is supplying the 

 same 95 per cent. Now where does it come from? They told me to go over 

 to Algeria to see; we crossed over to Oran, and I expected to find a wild, 

 barren country; in the north of Africa we traveled along a distance of two 

 hundred and fifty miles, and there is where the vineyards are producing, 

 not the noted French clarets as of old, but a wine of scarcely any commer- 

 cial value, less commercial value than the poor wines of the south of Italy, 

 and these are taken over to France and blended and sold, and sold in Sac- 

 ramento and Los Angeles and San Francisco, and many of the restaurants 

 there, who would sneer at having the California wine, will bring you out a 

 bottle of adulterated; and wine that they should sell for half a dollar a 

 bottle, to give the grower $35 or $40 a ton for his grapes, is thrust aside, 

 and the grapes dried and sacked. And I have this to remark in relation to 

 the drying of the grapes — my friend from Penryn said he had found a 

 splendid remedy now for getting rid of his wine grapes, he can dry all his 

 grapes and sell them — it is one of the nails in the coffin of that industry in 

 California; the stuff that is dried in sacks is used to kill the industries of 



