Apropos to some small relief for the wine-growers of France,
M. MAUGUIN has been exposing the state of the landed interest in that country. It appears to be melancholy in the extreme. The land pays about half the revenue of France, or about 29,000,0001.; it is mortgaged to the extent of 26,000,0001. a year interest; making the burdens on the landed proprietors amount to 55,000,0001. out of an annual total of 72,000,000/. ! The amount of mortgages increases yearly—it increased in eight years, ending with 1840, by an amount equal t o 6,000,0001. a year interest. The wine-trade, one of the staples, is oppressed by taxes on internal transit and excise. The Bourbons encouraged exportation ; but, alas! they had not learned Mr. RICARDO'S maxim, "take care of the imports, and the exports will take care of themselves " : they "encouraged" exports, as the saying is ; but they encouraged also the prohibitive system, and the French wine-exporters could not find markets. French wine has been left to turn sour in the cellars of the wine-growers, while France has been " encouraging" the growth of beet-sugar to render her in- dependent of one class of imports, even from her own colonies. And, taking into account no burdens but taxes and mortgages, the land retains but 24 per cent of its own income, to pay for all the real expenses of cultivation, wages, and profit ! " Protection " of native industry and negotiations for reciprocity are very promising things ; but experience certainly does not show them to realize much ex- cept loss and " embarrassment."
