The protective duty on corn having been followed by a
scarcity, the price of bread in France has risen almost by a third. As the operatives live on bread, they do not like that, and in two or three places they have rioted. The Act enables the Mayors under these circumstances to fix a maximum price, and this has been done in many places, the bakers submitting from fear of the mob, who, once the maximum is fixed, enforce it by wrecking the shops of recusants. In St. Denis, however, the bakers refused to obey, and closed their shops, whereupon the Mayor threatened to open State bakeries at once, which, if the Commissariat helped him, would not be difficult Protection in this instance led straight to Socialism, the State taking into its own hands the most necessary of all employments of capital. As a rule, however, we fancy that official interference in bakeries in France operates only as a sort of rough and cumbrous Poor- Law, the State aiding the very poor to get their food by paying the bakers, instead of making allowances directly to the indigent. The Mayors' orders are only enforced on behalf of the starving, those who can pay still paying the bakers' price, just as in England the loaf is never full weight for the rich. They are assumed to buy fancy bread.
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