THE BLOCKADE OF FRANCE.
ON. Sunday night, at 6. o'clock, France, by her own voluntary act, was to all intents and purposes put under a blockade. That is, following. the example set her by America, she deliberately shut her gates against the produce of the world. The analogy of a city expecting immediate investment was almost exact. On such occa- sions; the Governor issues an order that, after a particular hour on a particular day, the barriers will be closed, and no one will be permitted to bring anything into the town. For the twenty-four hours before that day, the roads and railways are blocked with cattle and pro- visions of all kinds, and the merchants and traders strain every nerve to fling into the town every sort of, supply. This is exactly what happened. on Sunday in France. For a day or two previous, her seaports and frontier towns were blocked by a steady inrush of goods seeking to avoid the new and well-nigh prohibitive tariff. At this moment, there are no less than eight thousand barrels of wine lying at Hendaye, on the Spanish frontier, and it is calculated that, in all, some fifteen million gallons have passed the Custom-House in the course of the last few days. France, in a word, is going to try whether, like the United States, she cannot shut herself off from commercial assistance from the rest of the world. She is possessed by the idea that a nation's road to wealth and pro- sperity is to sell as much as possible, and to buy as little. Her object is to keep at home the millions that are now going to the foreigner, but at the same time to gather in as many millions as before by selling to other countries. To the eternal law of reason, he that does not buy neither shall he sell, she turns a deaf ear, and has entered upon one of the most rigid experiments ever made in the restriction of international exchange.
America is so much like another planet, and grows so plentifully all the necessaries of life, that the Republic may not realise for many years the process. of national im- poverishment set on foot by the McKinley Tariff. The United States has placed herself in the position of a blockaded town ; but then, it is of a town which has almost limitless natural stores, and which never went beyond its own confines for any necessary of life. It is very different with France. The poor of the French towns, and even of many country districts, have become accustomed during the last ten or twelve years to drink the rough Spanish wines, and this for the very good reason that every drop of the real home-made wine can be soldtto the foreigner at a price far beyond. the means of the ouvrier. It is the same with meat. Half Paris is fed on foreign meat. Every week the carcasses• of twenty thousand, foreign sheep have been consumed in the capital. " The old duty was 3 fr. per 100 kilos., or about 601e. per head, but it is now raised to 32 fr. per 100 kilos:, or. .6fr. 40 c. per head." If, then, foreign meat is to enter Paris, it will-have to be sold at some 32 c. more per kilo. than at present. Is this an advance in price which the people of Paris will find it pleasant to pay ? But it will be - said they will not pay this, nor will the ouvrier pay any more for his wine now that Spanish wine is kept out, " In both cases the stopping of foreign competition will merely call up the hitherto stunted and repressed energies of France, and millions of litres of home-grovin wine and innumerable flocks of sheep will be produced to meet the demand. These new supplies, indeed, will not only keep the prices from rising, but will in all probability actually reduce them. And for-this reason. The millions now spent on the foreigner will be kept at home, will make capital cheap, and will enable every sort of agri- cultural and industrial operation to be carried on with greater ease than formerly." There wants but one question to bring this ingenious house of cards to the ground. Are there at present millions of hectares of good. land lying unfilled and unoccupied which, if the owners were not oppressed by foreign competition, could produce wine and sheep, and thousands of men unemployed who might be profitably engaged is winw producing and farming ? If there are, , then it is just arguable that keeping out• foreign competition might not raise the price of wine and mutton. But it is a matter of common knowledge that every acre of France really fit for cultivation is cultivated. If, then, more wine and more sheep are to be produced, land at present used for some- thing else, and since it is now used for something else, better fitted for that-than either for vine-culture or sheep- producing, must be employed to make up the deficiencies produced by the stopping of imports. Now, the industries thus evicted must either produce things sold to the people of France or to the foreigner. If to the former, the output of the product in question will. be diminished ; its- price will rise, and the French consumer will suffer. If to the latter—i.e., the foreigner—France will lose that money which it is the object of Protection to get into the country. In either case, then, there is a•-national loss. In plain English, the French farmers are letting, foreigners supply France with a certain amount of mutton and wine, either because they are producing. as much of those things as they can, or because they can produce something else more profitably. To bribe them, then, to make up a deficiency caused by a Protective tariff, must be either to starve the nation, or to waste the national resources. This is a dilemma from which there is no escape. That France will be speedily brought to a sense of the folly she has committed, we do not doubt. In the first place—the correspondent of the Daily Telegraph shows that this is inevitable—the prices of food will rise in Paris and the great towns almost beyond endurance. They are high enough already, and an extra. 50 e. a kilo. on meat would be 'the last straw. Next, since a vast number of French peasants merely live off their farms, and sell little or nothing, there will be a great many agriculturists who will not benefit in the least by the high prices. As soon, then, as the vast stores run into France under the old tariff have been used up, we may expect a strong reaction in favour of Free-trade. It is possible that, since the French are nothing if not logical, this reaction may be complete, and that nothing will remain but a revenue tariff. Time will show. Meantime, it is curious to note that the best organs of public opinion in France are seriously alarmed. It is not the fashion for French newspapers to be pessimistic, the instinct of a French- man being to say that his country is flourishing. Yet on Monday the Debate used language which fitly portrays the gravity of the situation :—" We are about to witness the progress of a vast and dangerous economic experiment. That experiment will not immediately produce conclusive results. The immense importation movement which stopped only last night at the last minute will doubtless for a time disturb the data of the problem. It will be seen whether it is possible for our export industries to compete in foreign markets with more and more formidable rivals when 'the cost-price will be raised and when they find themselves under the immediate influence or the con- stant threat of prohibitive duties. It will be seen whether at home the new system does not involve the greater dear- ness of all the necessaries of life, and whether our ' Demo- cratic' assemblies have not cast on millions of consumers the heaviest, least proportionate, and most unjust of taxes. The Protectionists have carried the day ; they have imposed their programme ; and they will bear the responsibility of the venture. Let us only hope that the consequences may not be too cruel, that the fortune and influence of the country may not receive irreparable damage, and that the inevitable reaction may not have too long to be waited for." No word of ours can add to the significance of such an utterance. The wiser heads in France evidently fear that their country has entered upon a path of extreme danger in blockading herself against the world. They know, though we do not, what the siege of a great• city involves, and they perceive that it is precisely a siege which France has decreed against herself.
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