REESE LIBRARY / 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Class 
 
THE RETURN TO THE LAND 
 
THE RETURN TO 
 THE LAND 
 
 BY 
 
 SENATOR JULES MELINE 
 
 LEADER OF THE MODERATE REPUBLICANS IN FRANCE J FORMER MINISTER 
 OF AGRICULTURE ; MINISTER OF COMMERCE J PREMIER 
 
 WITH A PREFACE BY 
 
 JUSTIN MCCARTHY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 E. P. BUTTON AND COMPANY 
 
 31 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET 
 1907 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THIS book seems to me destined to make a 
 deep mark upon the age. Senator Jules Meline, 
 leader of the Moderate Republicans in France, 
 was Minister of Agriculture in the Cabinet of 
 Jules Ferry from 1883 to 1885; was elected 
 President of the representative chamber of 
 France in 1889; and in 1896 became Prime 
 Minister an office which he resigned not long 
 after, having found probably that his political 
 views were not radical enough for the public 
 opinion of the country. The book is remarkable 
 in every sense. With all its practical teaching, 
 with its minute and careful instruction on manu- 
 facturing and industrial questions, there is not a 
 dull page in it from first to last. M. Meline has 
 much of the feeling of the poet as well as the 
 reasoning power of the practical and the scien- 
 tific teacher. Even where the reader may not 
 accept all the principles of political economy on 
 which M. Meline founds many parts of his case, 
 that reader, if he have an appreciative mind, 
 cannot fail to admire the sincerity, the power, 
 
 v 
 
 166144 
 
Preface 
 
 and the persuasiveness of the author. The great 
 object of the book is to convince the world that 
 the return to the land, and to the work which 
 the land still offers in all or most countries, is 
 now the nearest and the surest means for the 
 mitigation or the removal of the troubles which 
 have come on the working populations every- 
 where, and that the present is the appropriate 
 time for the beginning of such a movement. 
 
 In his opening chapter the author tells us 
 that the most remarkable feature of the nine- 
 teenth century is the immense development of 
 the manufacturing industries. " Manufacture 
 to-day," M. Meline justly declares, "is as different 
 from what it was a hundred years ago as are 
 our social institutions from those of the Middle 
 Ages." Within less than half a century this 
 great change lias taken place, and M. Meline 
 says that the change was inevitable " from the 
 moment when science made its way upon the 
 stage of primitive industry, ever turning until 
 then in the same circle, ever running in the 
 same grooves." The limits of production were 
 naturally and inevitably fixed according to the 
 number of men and women able to give manual 
 labour enough in each particular region for the 
 supply of the products which it required. The 
 author follows out the course of this world-wide 
 
 vi 
 
Preface 
 
 change, or rather new development, in a series 
 of descriptions which are no less vivid than 
 careful and accurate. The reader who begins 
 this volume with nothing more than a creditable 
 desire to learn something about the development 
 of manufacturing industry here, there, and every- 
 where, soon finds himself absorbed in M. Meline's 
 exposition as much as if he were reading a story 
 of magic from the "Thousand and One Nights." 
 Before the recent stage of manufacturing de- 
 velopment which belongs to our own time, 
 England, well supplied as she was by nature 
 with iron and with coal, should have become the 
 foremost industrial country in the world, and 
 by far the largest exporter of manufactured 
 products. 
 
 I may, perhaps, become so much of a critic 
 just here as to find some fault with M. Meline. 
 I think that he is not quite fair to England and 
 her governments in his manner of dealing with 
 the effects of the famous Treaty of Commerce 
 between this country and France. " For a 
 moment," M. Meline says, "it seemed as though 
 England were disposed to let France have a 
 share in her prosperity ; but we soon discovered 
 that we had been merely the cat's-paws of our 
 more powerful neighbour, and that, instead of 
 finding our way into her field, it was she who 
 
 vii 
 
Preface 
 
 was finding her way more and more into ours." 
 But surely it is evident that the sole reason for 
 this result is found in the fact that England pro- 
 duced manufactured goods which France desired 
 to have, and that she allowed France to have 
 them on the easiest terms. Richard Cobden, who 
 with Michel Chevalier, the great French econo- 
 mist, began and conducted the negotiations for 
 the Treaty of Commerce, was a sincere friend of 
 France as well as of his own country, and as the 
 writer of this review personally knows, had the 
 interests of France deeply at heart while he was 
 pressing the treaty on the attention of his own 
 government. Then with the growth of scientific 
 machinery, came the desire among all nations, as 
 M. Meline puts it, " to defend themselves against 
 foreign competition " by the effort to manu- 
 facture for themselves all the goods which they 
 most wanted, and, by import duties, to protect 
 themselves against foreign competition. M. 
 Meline naturally shows himself all through his 
 volume a genuine Protectionist, but I feel well 
 assured that the most convinced Free Trader 
 among his readers will not feel any grudge 
 against him merely because he stands by his 
 own economical principles, inasmuch as through 
 the whole of his work his evident resolve is to 
 state with absolute fairness the facts on which 
 
 viii 
 
Preface 
 
 he rests his case. The universal passion for the 
 development of native industries, and its suc- 
 cessful working almost everywhere, led naturally 
 and inevitably to a rivalry in exportations. The 
 countries which were successful in this work of 
 production soon found that they could make 
 more goods than were needed at home, and 
 became therefore inspired with the desire to find 
 purchasers in foreign markets. 
 
 In this new movement the United States led 
 the way. The States fortified themselves with 
 prohibitory duties against other nations, while at 
 the same time making it clear, according to my 
 judgment, that no such protective ramparts were 
 needed. The United States have lately become 
 by far the largest exporters among all the 
 countries of the world ; and not only that, but 
 their exports approach very nearly in amount, 
 and in some industries actually exceed, the 
 combined products of all other parts of our 
 globe. A remarkable fact about this immense 
 increase in American productions is that the 
 United States have not sought out new and 
 unoccupied markets, but have "resolutely at- 
 tacked the markets of Europe those which were 
 already being best worked those of France and 
 Germany and England herself." 
 
 M. Meline also attaches much importance to 
 ix 
 
Preface 
 
 the sudden and rapid development of Japan in 
 the promotion of its great manufacturing indus- 
 tries. Japan has become within the last few 
 years almost unrivalled in her production of oil, 
 of cotton goods, and of silk. The astonishing 
 and utterly unexpected successes Japan made as 
 a military power were, M. Meline declares, 
 " merely a prelude to the economic conquests 
 which await her, and on which she counts ; for 
 she had this in view when she undertook the 
 war, and her struggle with Russia was but a 
 proof of her intention to capture the Asiatic 
 market, and to remain master of it." A new 
 struggle is therefore opening up among the 
 nations of the world as regards the production 
 of manufactured goods. Such a contest must, 
 of course, lead to depressing and even ruinous 
 rivalries here and there, and must, M. Meline 
 believes, bring thinking men to the conviction 
 that there is some other element of national pro- 
 ductiveness which must be called into develop- 
 ment in order to maintain any permanent 
 remedy for increasing poverty, and increasing 
 and heedless emigration. This is the conclusion 
 at which the author of the book arrives, and the 
 remedy he calls for is that return to the land 
 which gives a title to his volume. M. Meline is 
 an enthusiast about this return to the land. He 
 
Preface 
 
 regards the occupation and cultivation of the 
 land in every country as one of the healthiest 
 and most hopeful conditions in which men and 
 women can be brought up. He lays especial 
 stress on the improvement which can be wrought 
 in the condition of working women everywhere 
 by the cultivation of the land on which they live. 
 The business of market gardening may be made 
 not merely a profitable occupation for women, 
 but a means of developing their intelligence, 
 their culture, and their self-respect. While 
 much of the mechanical work which furnishes 
 a means of bare livelihood to the women of all 
 our populations has often to be performed under 
 conditions detrimental alike to physical health, 
 and to mental and moral development, the return 
 to the land, to the cultivation of market gardens, 
 to the bringing-up of flowers, and the study of 
 plants, would render woman in every sense a 
 helpful and improving companion to man. We 
 can hardly think of Hood's melancholy verses, 
 " The Song of the Shirt," as likely to have any 
 illustration to be found in woman's labour to 
 cultivate the soil on which her husband or father 
 was working, and on which her years since 
 childhood have been spent. 
 
 It may not, perhaps, be altogether inappro- 
 priate here to call attention to the fact which 
 
 xi 
 
Preface 
 
 M. Meline would probably have invited to his 
 aid, if he happened to remember it, that our 
 familiar word "dairy" was originally derived 
 from the old English word " deye," which merely 
 signifies a maid, and which came with slight 
 alteration to be used as a term of endearment, 
 and thus gave us the growing young woman 
 as the central and characteristic figure in the 
 industrial arrangement for the production and 
 the sale of milk and butter and cheese. Bacon 
 says that " dairies being well housewifed are 
 exceeding commodious," and, again, " children 
 in dairy countries do wax more tall than 
 where they feed more upon bread and flesh." 
 M. Meline, indeed, gives us many illustrations 
 of the happy contrast between the condition of 
 women who have always been employed in farm 
 and gardening work, and that of those who 
 make a living for themselves, or help to make 
 a living for their families, through their toil 
 with the indoor work of great cities. This, of 
 course, is only one part of our author's case, 
 but he dwells upon it, and illuminates it with 
 artistic, and even poetic, expressiveness. We 
 all must admit that the crowding of rural 
 populations, of all manner of populations, into 
 most of our large cities and towns has an 
 especially destructive effect upon the physical 
 
 xii 
 
Preface 
 
 health, and the mental and moral improvement 
 of women. 
 
 In our own islands there has been every- 
 where, of late years, a clearly expressed anxiety 
 for the accomplishment of the return to the 
 land, and a general agreement that such a 
 return is only to be brought about by a course 
 of legislation, which shall make the toiler in 
 fields the owner of the piece of land he culti- 
 vates. Conservative governments, as well as 
 Liberal governments, have shown themselves 
 anxious to introduce legislation with such an 
 object. The time has happily long gone by 
 when John Stuart Mill justly described the Irish 
 cottier-tenant as one of the few men \nho could 
 neither benefit by his own industry, nor suffer 
 by his own improvidence. The description was 
 literally correct at the day when Mill gave it to 
 the world. The only result which the Irish 
 cottier-tenant could accomplish for himself by 
 the improvement of his farm, was to bring about 
 an increase of his rent, and his most utter im- 
 providence could do no worse than bring him to 
 the workhouse, the shelter whither his industry 
 would be just as likely to conduct him in the 
 end. No tendency in modern opinion and in 
 modern legislation can be more distinct than the 
 tendency towards a system which shall create 
 
 xiii 
 
Preface 
 
 a peasant-proprietary, and make the tiller of the 
 soil the owner of that much of the soil which 
 he cultivates. There is also, and has been 
 growing up for some time, a tendency amongst 
 civilized countries to recognize the artistic, 
 picturesque, and poetic associations belonging 
 to the culture of the land ; the associations on 
 which M. Meline dwells with much effect as 
 tending so happily to the development of human 
 education. We have seen these associations 
 very effectively illustrated in some recent move- 
 ments at home. The Garden City is not by any 
 means a mere dream ; it is already becoming in 
 many places something like a reality. There 
 are some splendid plans for the improvement 
 of London itself on this principle, for the con- 
 version of many of London's unpicturesque, 
 squalid, and overcrowded regions into open 
 spaces with grass and trees, and with houses 
 and cottages not too near to stifle and darken 
 each other, but only near enough to allow of 
 friendly intercourse and companionship. There 
 are also schemes for the creation of garden 
 cities in various parts of the country, cities to 
 be constituted mainly of homes belonging to 
 the cultivators of the soil themselves, and not 
 open to the indiscriminate incursion of a slum 
 population. 
 
 xiv 
 
Preface 
 
 M. Meline in his work gives very naturally 
 his main attention to the condition of the rural 
 population in France, and, of course, that is 
 exactly the subject on which we all especially 
 desire to have the benefit of his observation 
 and judgment ; but the English readers will find 
 that much of his advice has a distinct applica- 
 tion to the development of agricultural industry 
 now going on in Great Britain and Ireland. 
 M. Meline is strongly of opinion that in the 
 creation of new agricultural communities, in the 
 construction, for instance, of garden cities, some 
 effort should always be made to provide for the 
 resident's greater opportunities of amusement 
 and of genial intercourse. He feels convinced 
 that in many of the larger villages and smaller 
 towns the habits of the residents are injuriously 
 affected by the absence of any such oppor- 
 tunities, and that men, and women as well, are 
 drawn into the use of deleterious stimulants by 
 mere lack of any means of occupying them- 
 selves when the actual work of the day is over. 
 He would, therefore, encourage all harmless and 
 healthful amusements, indoor and out-of-door, 
 throughout the agricultural settlements of the 
 coming time. So far as out-of-door amusements 
 are concerned, our rural populations have, I 
 should think, a decided advantage over those 
 
 xv b 
 
Preface 
 
 of France ; but, on the other hand, I see good 
 reason for believing that, so far as indoor 
 amusements are concerned, our village com- 
 munities are not nearly so well equipped as 
 those of France. We learn from M. Meline's 
 book that an eminent French manufacturer con- 
 templates the creation of a garden city capable 
 of holding 6000 workers at Champagne-sur- 
 Seine, side by side with electricity works. 
 M. Meline, however, does not put too much 
 faith in the reforms to be created by the 
 formation of garden cities. 
 
 As M. Meline very fairly puts it, the garden 
 city must always be something exceptional and 
 isolated, and however numerous such cities may 
 be, they can give shelter only to a small minority 
 of the human race. It is not likely that all great 
 manufacturers will take to the founding of such 
 delightful refuges, or that all the garden cities 
 actually founded are destined to prove success- 
 ful. "The industrial struggle of to-day," to 
 quote M. Meline's words, " is no idyll, and to 
 win one's way lin it it is often necessary to 
 make the best of very unpleasant and uninviting 
 surroundings." The great question to be con- 
 sidered is, as M. Meline puts it, how to lead 
 back to the land those surplus workers who can 
 find no employment in the cities. The relief of 
 
 xvi 
 
Preface 
 
 the cities has to be considered as well as the 
 cultivation of the farms. The cities ought to be 
 relieved from the crowd of unemployed workers, 
 and the fields ought to be supplied with a 
 number of workers who would fain find em- 
 ployment there, but who know that it is hope- 
 less under present conditions to seek any such 
 means of making a living there. 
 
 The reader will find in this work a very 
 faithful study of the present condition of agricul- j 
 ture, not only in France, which is naturally the 
 main subject of many chapters, but also in many 
 European countries, and in the United States, 
 Canada, Mexico, and other lands. M. Meline 
 argues that thus far the ministries and parlia- 
 ments of too many countries have entirely 
 neglected in legislation the rural districts in 
 order to do everything that could be done for 
 the towns. So far as France is concerned, 
 M. Meline says that the explanation is quite 
 simple. "The people in the towns constitute 
 the most important voters, making their voices 
 heard, and securing obedience to tfieir wishes; 
 and their needs are admirably served by a 
 Press still more energetic, which flatters them 
 in order to maintain and extend its own power, 
 as well as by innumerable politicians vieing 
 against each other with promises which one of 
 
 xvii 
 
Preface 
 
 these days may have to be fulfilled." "The 
 government," M. Meline declares, " is afraid of 
 these powers, and does everything it can to 
 give them satisfaction, paying little or no 
 attention to these inarticulate peasants who 
 are so resigned to their lot, and whose patience 
 is so wonderful." The author here is treating 
 only of his own country, and is not making any 
 attack upon the government or the Press of 
 England. I do not, from my own opportunities 
 of observation, see any reason to believe that 
 the ministries and the Press of Great Britain 
 and Ireland have been wholly absorbed during 
 recent years in studying the welfare of the 
 citizen peoples, and have remained, or have 
 been allowed to remain, entirely indifferent to 
 the state of the agricultural regions and their 
 populations. Few other subjects have occupied 
 more attention on the part of the House of 
 Commons during recent years than the many 
 questions of land settlement which have come 
 up for discussion; and, indeed, I should be 
 rather inclined to say that, while the public in 
 general may have given much attention to the 
 troubles caused by the overcrowding of cities, 
 the ministries and parliaments have not shown 
 adequate energy in the efforts to supply some 
 remedy for those evils. It may be said, 
 
 xviii 
 
Preface 
 
 however, that the efforts to solve either question, 
 if carried out at once with courage and dis- 
 cretion, must directly tend to the solving of 
 the other. The study of M. Meline's work 
 helps of itself to make this fact more and more 
 clear. One inestimable benefit which must 
 come from the return to the land would be the 
 relief of the overcrowded cities ; and the relief 
 of the overcrowded cities would find its best 
 and readiest means of accomplishment by the 
 opening up of new occupation for workers on 
 the land. Thus there ought to be no serious 
 likelihood of any antagonism between town and 
 country concerning this great movement for the 
 re-occupation of the land. He who helps the 
 one cause helps the other cause that much at 
 least is quite certain. 
 
 M. Meline concludes his task by declaring 
 that to ameliorate the lot of the working-classes, 
 and ward off the dangers which are impending, 
 there is but one thing to do, and that is "to 
 provide them with new fields of labour by send- 
 ing them back to the land." M. Meline sums 
 up at the close of his final chapter the solution 
 of the problem before us "which may be said 
 to be merely an expansion of a profound thought 
 uttered long ago by a Chinese philosopher a 
 thought which should be inscribed upon the 
 
 xix 
 
Preface 
 
 walls of our schools in letters of gold ' The well- 
 being of a people is like a tree ; agriculture is its 
 root, manufacture and commerce are its branches 
 and leaves ; if the root is injured the leaves fall, 
 the branches break away, and the tree dies.' " 
 
 I have thus set forth and sometimes, to the 
 great advantage of my readers, in M. Meline's 
 own words, at least in the English translation 
 of them the main purposes of a work which 
 cannot fail to come in for world-wide attention 
 and even study. I have not made any attempt 
 to describe the methods by which the author 
 believes that the results which he hopes for 
 can be accomplished, the manner in which State 
 guidance and State aid can be given to such a 
 movement, the specifics for the regulation of 
 foreign competition among the nations of the 
 earth, the means of remedying or relieving the 
 troubles brought about by seasons of agricultural 
 distress, and all the many other difficulties in 
 the way of that return to the land which the 
 author regards as the only possible panacea for 
 some of humanity's troubles. M. Meline's book 
 must be carefully read and studied if its purpose 
 is to be thoroughly appreciated, and no mere 
 summary of its pages given by an outsider 
 could possibly render justice to it. The greater 
 part of the book is, of course, occupied with the 
 
 XX 
 
Preface 
 
 land question as it is working itself out in 
 France, and in which there are many operating 
 conditions, conditions alike of climate, of usage, 
 and of law, which naturally do not find their 
 exact parallel in all or in any other countries; 
 but, as I have already said, the author appears 
 to have made a deep study of the agricultural 
 question as it presents itself in many other 
 countries as well as in his own, and the manner 
 in which he proposes that his project should be 
 worked out will be found worthy of study in 
 every country where the claims of manufacturing 
 and agricultural industry are coming into com- 
 petition. I have made these comments mainly 
 because it occurred to me that some English 
 readers might be discouraged by discovering 
 early in the book that its author was dealing 
 for the most part with French conditions. Any 
 reader who may feel thus discouraged at the 
 outset will find, if he perseveres, that although 
 the volume is mainly French in its descriptions 
 and its horizon, yet the main purpose of the 
 author may be appreciated, and his proposals 
 turned to good account under whatever skies 
 and amid whatever legalized conditions. M. 
 Meline's views on economic questions are some- 
 times at entire variance with my own, but I 
 hope that I am not in any sense disqualified 
 
 xxi 
 
Preface 
 
 by that fact from rendering full justice to the 
 general objects of the great movement which 
 the author invites, and indeed regards as in- 
 evitable. M. Meline is conservative enough in 
 his views to satisfy the best regulated of British 
 Conservative minds, and he tells us himself that 
 " the spirit of the French peasant contains trea- 
 sures of good sense and right thinking which 
 will strengthen it against the sophisms of the 
 revolutionary school, and save it from the 
 perilous adventures into which socialism would 
 tempt it." Furthermore, he assures us that "The 
 return to the land will not be brought about by 
 violent and empirical measures, but scientifically, 
 and by men of good will working in concord 
 and unity for the ordering of the products of 
 the nation in harmony and proportion." 
 
 Such is the vision of the future which M. 
 Meline opens up to our eyes. It is indeed an 
 idyllic and a fascinating picture. An English poet 
 laments for the day, " Ere England's griefs began, 
 when every rood of ground maintained its man." 
 There is no precise definition of the historical 
 period described as the time " ere England's 
 griefs began," and one may well be inclined to 
 believe that with the very beginning of every 
 people some griefs must already have been 
 foreshadowed. But without entering into any 
 
 xxii 
 
Preface 
 
 consideration of that question, it must seem to 
 most of us an ideal time when every rood of 
 ground shall be able to maintain its man, and the 
 return to the land, which M. Meline sees in pro- 
 spect, is to "enable the land to maintain its work- 
 ing woman also in prosperity and self-respect. 
 Such a period, indeed, when the cities shall no 
 longer be overcrowded, and vast spaces of land 
 now uncultivated although with a half-starving 
 peasantry striving to maintain a living, there 
 shall be divided among the ownership of hard- 
 working, intelligent, and prosperous peasant 
 proprietors, must seem to most of us like a 
 return of the golden age. It must also be borne 
 in mind that M. Meline, although with many 
 poetic touches in his style, is not a poet or a 
 mere idealist, but a practical and scientific thinker, 
 an experienced statesman, who has studied his 
 question thoroughly, and has satisfied himself 
 that the condition of things he foresees can be 
 established by improved legislation, and by the 
 influence of healthful co-operation. It is true 
 that the book now published has mainly to do 
 with the land and the agricultural populations 
 of France, but we all know that the depressing 
 conditions which he shows us as existing in 
 France, are even still the actual and the common 
 experience of most or all of the other countries 
 
 xxiii 
 
Preface 
 
 of our modern world. We may, therefore, 
 reasonably assume that if the happy solution of 
 the hitherto unsolved problem can be accom- 
 plished in France, it may also be accomplished 
 with at least 'equal success in our own countries. 
 The period is specially favourable for the begin- 
 ning in sober, serious earnest of such a result by 
 the adaptation of our existing laws to the pur- 
 pose of bringing about the return to the land. 
 The idea has of late been taking a firm hold on 
 the minds of all thinking men and women. I 
 have already pointed out that the state of the 
 Irish peasantry is even now showing how much 
 can be done for the cultivation of the soil and 
 for the comfort of its workers by the legislative 
 measures which even Conversative ministeries 
 have helped to introduce, and which half a 
 century ago our legislators would have regarded 
 as utterly impracticable, and also as monstrously 
 unjust to the ruling landlords, whose arbitrary 
 and seignorial rights such measures sought to 
 abolish. 
 
 I may say for myself, that I feel all the 
 greater satisfaction when I remember that the 
 plans and the predictions of our author come 
 from a man who in many of his economic prin- 
 ciples does not accept the doctrines of most of 
 the British public. If M. Meline can see his way 
 
 xxiv 
 
Preface 
 
 to such results, how easy ought to be their 
 accomplishment in a country like England, which 
 is for the most part in full harmony with the 
 doctrines of men like Richard Cobden and John 
 Bright. The truth is, that the great principles 
 which M. Meline advocates, have a far wider 
 scope than can be surveyed and comprehended 
 within the mere limitations of this or that 
 economic school. We must keep before our 
 minds steadily, to begin with, that the two great 
 objects we have in view are the relief of the 
 cities from the superabundance of populations 
 striving hopelessly to obtain a living where the 
 population is already superabundant, and the 
 restoration to the uncultivated land of that inde- 
 pendent peasant proprietorship which alone can 
 save it from lying waste. As I read this volume it 
 is a pleading, first of all, for the peasant owner- 
 ship of the piece of land which the peasant 
 cultivates, and therefore a diffusion of that 
 skilful and intelligent labour which can make the 
 cultivation of the land a benefit and a blessing to 
 the poor toiler as well as to the lord of the soil. 
 The " Return to the Land " seems to me sure 
 of a welcome among the intelligent and the 
 progressive states and nations of the world. 
 
 JUSTIN MCCARTHY. 
 
 xxv 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PREFACE v 
 
 INTRODUCTION i 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE GROWTH OF MANUFACTURE 
 
 I. The Nineteenth Century The Sudden Growth of 
 
 the Manufacturing Industries Three Periods . 7 
 
 II. The Commercial Supremacy of England . . 9 
 
 III. The Other Nations establish Industries Triumph 
 
 of the Protectionist System The United States 
 and Japan join in . . . . . .10 
 
 IV. Swollen Markets The Advance of Germany 
 
 Development of Other Countries . . . .21 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 THE INDUSTRIAL CONGESTION 
 
 I. The Third Period in the History of Modern Manu- 
 factures The Crisis of 1901 27 
 
 II. Exports an Index to Over-production Their Extra- 
 
 ordinary Increase of Recent Years ... 30 
 
 III. German Methods and Devices Cartels ... 35 
 
 IV. Evidences and Effects of Over-production . . 39 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 FRANCE. IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY 
 
 I. The Development of Manufacture in France Total 
 
 Horse-power employed 47 
 
 xxvii 
 
Contents 
 
 II. The Cotton and Wool Industry Difficulties of their 
 
 Position Silk Metals 50 
 
 III. Protection charged with Over-production A Fallacy 
 
 England and Belgium 57 
 
 IV. Permanent Causes of Over-production The Im- 
 
 provement in Machinery New Trades Reduc- 
 tion of Manual Labour 60 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 MERCHANTS AND WORKMEN 
 
 I. Resistance offered by Workmen to Machinery 
 
 Their Folly 67 
 
 II. The Socialistic Remedy for Over-production 
 Shorter Hours of Labour The Solidarity of the 
 World's Markets The Need of International 
 Accord 69 
 
 III. Unemployment, a Sign of the Industrial Distress 
 
 The Grave Aspect in England, Germany, and 
 France Vagabondism 72 
 
 IV. The Commercial Plethora Too many Middle- 
 
 men The Condition of the Petty Tradesman . 75 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE RETURN TO THE LAND 
 
 I. Obstacles and Objections The Agricultural Crisis 83 
 II. Tariff Reform and its Effects 84 
 
 III. The Causes of the Rural Exodus . . .87 
 
 IV. Agriculture and Manufacture compared Raw 
 
 Material and Costs of Production Agricultural 
 
 Loans 92 
 
 V. Taxation Fiscal Inequality Personal Estate 
 
 Income Tax 96 
 
 VI. Unsatisfactory Methods of Sale Middlemen A 
 
 Remedy Co-operation 106 
 
 VII. Co-operative Societies for Production and Sale 
 
 Exports 1 10 
 
 VIII. Agricultural Training The Training of Worn en . 120 
 
 xxviii 
 
Contents 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 STATE AID 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. The Risks involved in Agriculture Methods of In- 
 surance Cantonal Hospitals . . . .129 
 II. Benevolent Institutions Mutual Benefit Societies 
 
 Savings Banks 134 
 
 III. The " Bien de Famille "How to establish it The 
 
 Peasant Proprietor Home Industries. . .138 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 VILLAGE LIFE. THE PUBLIC HEALTH 
 
 I. Need of Intellectual Enjoyments in the Country 
 Changes to be brought about The Absentee 
 
 Bourgeois 147 
 
 II. The Craving for Employment under Government 
 
 De-centralization 150 
 
 III. Capitalists and the Land The Agricultural Revival 
 
 Diminution of Industrial Profits . . . 153 
 
 IV. Hygiene and Public Health Tuberculosis . .155 
 V. Workmen's Gardens How to cope with Vagabond- 
 age State Aid Increase in the Numbers of 
 Peasant Proprietors The Birth-rate . . .161 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 ARTISANS AND PEASANTS 
 
 I. Socialistic Solutions M. Vandervelde's Ideas . 169 
 II. The Transplanting of Manufactories into the 
 
 Country 172 
 
 III. Garden Cities Port Sunlight and Bournville . . 175 
 
 IV. The Transition from Manufacture to Agriculture 
 
 Modifications of the Evil of Unemployment . 178 
 
 xxix 
 
Contents 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE PRESENT CONDITION OF AGRICULTURE 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. Machinery and the Saving of Labour Limits to the 
 Possibilities in this Direction Limitless Possi- 
 bilities for the Agricultural Market . . .185 
 II. The Call of the Land The Universal Tendency- 
 Economic Causes Mr. Chamberlain's Proposals 
 Their Weak Point The Agrarian Movement in 
 Germany, its Power and Success New Treaties 
 of Commerce Italy The United States . .189 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 THE COLONIES. AGRARIAN SOCIALISM 
 
 I. The Position of France from an Agricultural Point 
 of View Her Resources Reclaimable Land 
 
 Foreign Labour Statistics 207 
 
 II. Bourgeois and Tradesman The Dividing up of the 
 Land Land in the Colonies Our Colonial Pos- 
 sessions .211 
 
 III. The Need of Improved Education Aids to Coloni- 
 
 zation 213 
 
 IV. Algeria Inadequate Population M. Jonnart's 
 
 Plan 217 
 
 V. Agrarian Socialism Its Various Forms Remedies 220 
 VI. Conclusion 238 
 
 XXX 
 

 THE 
 
 RETURN TO THE LAND 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 century just closed must rank always 
 as one of the most marvellous periods in 
 the history of the world. So far-reaching are 
 the transformations it has brought about, we 
 may say without hyperbole that it has moulded 
 the world anew. To attempt to take stock of 
 what has happened during even the latter half 
 of it, is to stand amazed at all that has been 
 sw r ept away and all that has been ushered in. 
 Such metamorphoses have been wrought in the 
 life alike of society and of the individual, that 
 it seems almost like a dream when one goes 
 back in mind to the days of one's youth. 
 
 The further past is rich in great events, and 
 every century has its distinguishing mark ; no 
 two are alike, yet there is a family resemblance 
 between all. They seem to grow out of each 
 other in a natural process of evolution. 
 
 I B 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 With the nineteenth century above all, 
 with its close the scene changes suddenly, 
 and we find ourselves in an unknown land. 
 There would seem to have been a break 
 in the evolutionary process. In less than 
 fifty years everything is turned upside down 
 manufacture, agriculture, commerce, methods 
 of transport, everything. It is nothing less 
 than a revolution we find in progress, 
 carrying all things along with it like a 
 torrent. 
 
 To cause and consummate this revolution, 
 all that was needed was the appearance upon 
 the scene of a new force, until then little 
 talked of science. In a moment science 
 gave a new aspect to everything the whole 
 world had to keep pace with her. Ever 
 since, we have been going at a gallop 
 a breathless gallop that prevents us from 
 seeing where we are. 
 
 Now there is danger in this headlong career 
 the danger of our coming croppers over 
 the obstacles we cannot foresee. The present 
 would seem, therefore, to be a fitting moment 
 to call a halt in order to look around and 
 ahead, and to take note of the far-reaching 
 transformation that is going on. 
 
 The purpose of my book is to examine into 
 2 
 
Introduction 
 
 the actual facts of this transformation, to set 
 forth impartially the good and the ill that it 
 has entailed, to ascertain whither it is leading 
 us, and to discover the means of turning it to 
 the best interests of mankind. 
 
THE 
 
 GROWTH OF MANUFACTURE 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE GROWTH OF MANUFACTURE 
 I 
 
 THE outstanding feature of the nineteenth 
 century is the immense development of 
 the manufacturing industries. Manufacture to- 
 day is as different from what it was a hundred 
 years ago, as are our social institutions from 
 those of the Middle Ages. In less than half a 
 century it has sprung up like a colossal tree, 
 drawing to itself all the living forces of the 
 world. 
 
 It was inevitable that this change should take 
 place, from the moment when science made its 
 way upon the stage of primitive industry, ever 
 turning, until then, in the same circle, ever 
 running in the same grooves. There being 
 available only enough manual labour to work 
 the inadequate and inefficient machinery of those 
 days, the limits of production were always fixed 
 by the number of arms in existence and their 
 strength or weakness. There were no captains 
 
 7 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 of industry at this period only master workers 
 living in the midst of their small body of 
 apprentices, like fathers among their children. 
 There was no such thing as competition in the 
 present meaning of the word, and over-produc- 
 tion was unknown. Every workshop depended 
 upon its neighbouring clientele, and knew exactly 
 the extent of its needs ; the difficulty of com- 
 munication and the cost of transfer had the 
 effect of securing every industrial concern its 
 own markets, capable of keeping it going 
 peacefully and without anxiety. 
 
 The history of modern manufacture begins 
 with the wonderful inventions which have sub- 
 stituted machinery for the arms, and even the 
 brains, of the workers ; and which, by means of 
 rapid and inexpensive transport, have brought 
 all the markets of the world into touch, making 
 one great common market of them all. 
 
 Let us see through what successive stages 
 the manufacturing industries have passed on 
 their way to the position in which we find them 
 now. We can divide their history into three 
 separate periods corresponding to three quite 
 distinct stages. 
 
The Growth of Manufacture 
 
 II 
 
 The first period begins with the adaptation of 
 science to industry, the employment of steam- 
 engines and the introduction of mechanical 
 labour resulting in the gradual elimination of 
 workmen. It is obvious that the nation destined 
 to profit at the start by this revolution must be 
 the one best' supplied .by nature with iron, the 
 material for the machines, and with coal, their 
 daily bread. It was inevitable, therefore, that 
 England, so richly endowed in both respects, 
 should take the lead and become the foremost 
 industrial country ; it was only natural, more- 
 over, that, having no rival in a condition to 
 compete with her, she should have secured all 
 the markets and become a sort of universal 
 provider to the world. 
 
 During this first period, England wears the 
 aspect of a giant capable of crushing all coali- 
 tions, and she is so assured of being all- 
 powerful that she equips herself as though she 
 must retain this ascendency for ever. Her glory 
 extends to the confines of the globe, and she 
 lords it over all the markets of Europe, Asia, 
 and the New World, distributing her enormous 
 output in every direction ; she seems to have 
 
 9 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 a real monopoly, and all the other nations 
 seem resigned to her mastery. 
 
 For a moment it seemed as though she were 
 disposed to let France have a share, but] the 
 illusions born of the famous treaties of 1860 
 were not long-lived; we soon discovered that 
 we had been merely the cat's-paws for our more 
 powerful neighbour, and that, instead of finding 
 our way into her field, it was she who was 
 finding her way more and more into ours. Our 
 principal industries, taught by sharp experience, 
 came to the conclusion at last that contest with 
 an adversary so well-armed was impossible, and 
 gave out a cry of alarm, which was only silenced 
 by the downfall of the Empire. 
 
 We come now to our second period, following 
 upon the year 1870. 
 
 Ill 
 
 After 1870, a sudden change begins to operate 
 in the economic condition of Europe, and finishes 
 by extending over every part of the world. 
 
 1A11 the great nations evince their intention to 
 shake off the industrial yoke of England, and to 
 create, each on its own territory, manufactures 
 capable of ministering to home needs. To 
 defend themselves against foreign competition 
 
 10 
 
The Growth of Manufacture 
 
 and facilitate the establishment of these in- 
 dustries, all these countries without exception 
 fortified themselves behind a tariff of import,/ 
 duties. " We have no need of the foreigner," 
 was the mot d'ordre, " we are self-sufficing." 
 
 To be self-sufficing that is the ideal which 
 inspires and dominates the economic regime of 
 most nations. That this should come about was 
 inevitable, and England ought to have foreseen 
 it. What could be more natural than that a 
 nation should seek to provide for its own needs 
 instead of calling upon the foreigner to supply 
 them ? Charity, well-administered, begins at 
 home is not that the A B C of economic 
 science ? You may censure and deplore as 
 much as you please what you may regard as a 
 narrow point of view, a lack of high principle in 
 commercial life, but it would be naif to show 
 surprise at it. How could any one nation lay 
 claim to a right to be a provider to all the others, 
 and to prevent them from emancipating them- 
 selves by establishing industries of their own? 
 " It is sheer stupidity," say free traders, " to 
 persist in buying dear at home what you can get 
 so cheap from abroad." " Possibly," the nation 
 interested may reply, " but I prefer to give my 
 money to my working classes rather than to 
 foreigners, first of all because it gives them their 
 
 ii 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 living, secondly because it remains in the 
 country and benefits my entire population 
 instead of my neighbours." 
 
 It is easy to understand how the new idea 
 made its way everywhere, its opponents becom- 
 ing fewer and fewer every day. After Germany, 
 which opened the ball, Austria, Russia, France, 
 Spain, Italy, and Switzerland joined in. The 
 whole of Europe, save for England and, to a 
 certain extent, Belgium, drew up tariffs and 
 protection became universal. 
 
 Thus it was that all the European markets 
 became closed against England, and that she 
 found herself obliged to seek new openings 
 elsewhere for her immense production. She 
 had recourse to America, Asia, and Africa, and 
 for some years she met with all the success she 
 could desire and imagined herself saved; but 
 it was not long before she aroused in these 
 regions also the same feeling of independence 
 that had been evoked in Europe, combined 
 with the same instinct of self-preservation. 
 
 America was the first to enter into line with 
 European nations, doing so impetuously and with 
 a sublime disregard for all obstacles in the way, 
 bringing into her economic reforms all the 
 practical spirit and the tenacity of the Anglo- 
 Saxon race, together with the bellicose ardour of 
 
 12 
 
The Growth of Manufacture 
 
 a young people confident of its destinies. Burn- 
 ing its boats and leaving to elderly Europe the 
 prudent formulas of a modified protection, she 
 took up her stand on the ground of prohibition. 
 All the economists laughed at her, and predicted 
 that she would stifle behind her Great Wall of 
 China, and would soon have to call out for mercy. 
 She let them talk, continued to keep herself 
 closed off, and thus succeeded in establishing 
 upon her soil all those industries we now see 
 capable of ministering to the needs of her ever- 
 growing population.* 
 
 The first consequence of this step on the part 
 of the United States was the abolition of Europe's 
 principal market for manufactured goods a 
 clientele of eighty millions. It was hard to see 
 how the European industries would recover from 
 the blow. It was a significant warning for them 
 in any case, and a little reflection should have 
 sufficed to make them realize that the hour for 
 great ambitions had passed, and that the most 
 elementary prudence bade them slacken their! 
 pace and beware of over-production. 
 
 They might well have foreseen, from this 
 moment, another danger not less inevitable the 
 
 * The United States produced, in 1899, 13,000,000 tons of 
 cast-iron that is to say, more than all the rest of the world 
 produced in 1870 (12,000,000). 
 
 13 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 danger that the Americans, with their headstrong 
 temperament, would not stop half-way, but would 
 go to extremes in their economical development 
 by becoming exporters in their turn, and endeav- 
 ouring, like England, to invade the whole world. 
 They have succeeded in this with a dizzying 
 rapidity which is marvellous; in a few short 
 years they have taken their place among the 
 great exporting countries, and the results obtained 
 are almost beyond belief.* 
 
 Let us leave on one side the exportation of 
 agricultural products and raw materials, because 
 we shall be told that this kind of export is a 
 necessity and a benefit to the importing countries. 
 Let us speak only of manufactured products. 
 To estimate these, it may suffice to say that 
 during the last decade they have augmented at 
 the rate of 146 per cent, while the increase in 
 the export of agricultural products amounted 
 only to 36 per cent. 
 
 The strange and disquieting thing about this 
 
 * The total exports of the United States passed from 
 $4,130,000,000 in 1890, to $7,288,000,000 in 1903, an 
 increase of 76 per cent. There was a slight decrease in 1904, 
 owing to the general crisis, and it came down to $7,128,000,000. 
 
 American exports to England have increased at the rate of 
 127 per cent, during the last twenty-three years ; to India at 
 the rate of 126 per cent. ; to British North America at the rate 
 of 322 per cent. During the last few years American imports 
 have, it should be added, been increasing noticeably. 
 
 14 
 
The Growth of Manufacture 
 
 colossal expansion is that America has not 
 sought out new, unoccupied markets, as might 
 have been supposed ; she has resolutely attacked 
 the markets of Europe those which were already 
 being best worked those of France and Germany 
 and England herself. 
 
 In 1903, the exports of the United States 
 amounted to $1,013,000,000, whereas those of all 
 the rest of the world came to only $1,458,000,000.* 
 
 * To form a just idea of the vast aspirations of the United 
 States, and of their belief in themselves, one should read in its 
 entirety an article published a few years ago in Scribnet*s 
 Magazine, from the pen of an American of high standing in 
 finance, Mr. Vanderlip, assistant secretary to the Treasury. 
 "Formerly," says Mr. Vanderlip, "America was the great 
 exporter of cereals and raw material, and Europe the great 
 workshop in which these products were turned to account. 
 Now the roles are changed ; our exports of industrial products 
 increase from day to day, to such a degree that the figures 
 reached during the last three years justify the nervousness now 
 evinced in Europe regarding our industrial invasion. The 
 exportation of manufactured articles during the years 1889- 
 1897 amounted to $163,000,000 on an average, in 1898 it 
 amounted to $290,000,000, in 1899 to $333,000,000, and 
 in 1900 to $434,000,000. This ever-increasing exporta- 
 tion has been accompanied by a corollary phenomenon : the 
 rejection by our own markets of foreign industrial products. 
 America is becoming more and more a self-sufficing country ; 
 our industry is gaining more and more the mastery of the 
 international market." 
 
 To give to the above sentences their full significance, Mr. 
 Vanderlip proceeds to base upon them the following prophecy : 
 " The more industrial products we supply to other countries, 
 
 15 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 Not content with making themselves inde- 
 pendent of Europe and then depriving Europe of 
 some portion of her own home markets, the 
 United States are now laying siege to those 
 markets further afield, which Europe used to 
 dominate dethroning her in South America, 
 in China, and even in Canada, where they are 
 pursuing England into her last intrenchments. 
 
 It might have been supposed that after the 
 United States no other competitor would venture 
 to enter the lists, and that the general economic 
 situation was now settled for good and all. 
 What, then, was the general consternation when, 
 a few years ago, a small people who had not 
 been given much thought, and who were con- 
 sidered half-savage, suddenly emerged from their 
 shell (after a slow period of incubation that had 
 not been much observed by the sleepy eyes of 
 European diplomacy), and speedily won for 
 themselves a place in the front rank of indus- 
 trial races, pending the moment when they w r ere 
 to take a similar position amongst great military 
 powers: I speak of Japan. 
 
 It was so recently as 1897 that Japan, follow- 
 ing the example of the United States, set about 
 
 the less they will be able to manufacture themselves ; and 
 certain enthusiasts already foresee the day when America will 
 be the great provider for the entire world." 
 
 16 
 
The Growth of Manufacture 
 
 reforming its customs and became resolutely 
 protectionist. In a moment almost it had estab- 
 lished great industries on its own soil, borrowing 
 from Europe her industrial science and her most 
 perfected machinery. Once started, Japan never 
 looked back, and the results of her action are 
 prodigious : in 1895, sne could boast only 518,000 
 spindles for cotton ; in 1902 she possessed 
 1,400,000. Her production of oil, which did 
 not exceed 3,000,000 tuns in 1893, amounted in 
 1901 to 8,000,000. From having been merely an 
 importer, she became suddenly one of the most 
 formidable of exporters : her general exports 
 rose from 25,000,000 yen in 1898 to 289,000,000 
 in 1903. Her exports of cotton goods, which 
 amounted to 63,000,000 francs in 1902, amounted 
 in the following year to 101,000,000. As regards 
 silk, her progress was still more remarkable. 
 Her silk exports in 1903 reached the enormous 
 figure of 289,000,000 francs. 
 
 This movement of expansion will not stop 
 there; the wonderful successes which estab- 
 lished Japan as a great military power were 
 merely a prelude to the economic conquests 
 which await her, and on which she counts; for 
 she had this in view when she undertook the 
 war, and her struggle with Russia was but a 
 proof of her intention to capture the Asiatic 
 
 17 c 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 market and to remain master of it. The great 
 nations of Europe, which looked on benevolently 
 at Japan's attack upon gigantic Russia, and 
 which rejoiced in secret over Russia's humilia- 
 tion, will learn one day to their cost that jealousy 
 is an evil counsellor, and that they have been 
 favouring the game of the most formidable of all 
 their competitors. The same may be said of the 
 United States, which at one time hugged the 
 notion of being Japan's provider, and which 
 soon will find themselves not only driven out 
 of this market, but ousted also from the huge 
 market in China, of which they also dreamed. 
 
 One would have to be blind not to see that 
 Japan is preparing to play the same economic 
 role in the Extreme East that Germany played 
 in Europe after 1870, with this difference, which 
 ensures her expansion an advantage over Ger- 
 many that she is as inaccessible and invulner- 
 able as England by reason of her insular 
 position. 
 
 The war in Manchuria, as she regarded it, 
 was merely her first application of a new 
 Monroe Doctrine for the Yellow Race. She 
 considers herself called upon to take her place 
 as leader of this race, and take it she will : her 
 victories over the white race have assured her 
 an irresistible ascendency over it. 
 
 18 
 
The Growth of Manufacture 
 
 It seems probable that she will not abuse her 
 power just at first, and that she will not push 
 her military advantages too far for fear of com- 
 promising them, and of provoking a general 
 coalition against her. She will doubtless content 
 herself with organising the warlike elements of 
 China just as she organised her own, and with 
 holding them in leash ready to let loose when- 
 ever the hour for the great struggle with the 
 white races sliall have sounded, and she shall 
 feel herself strong enough to brave the entire 
 world. Until then she will content herself with 
 the role of commercial invader invading without 
 scruple. 
 
 On this field she is in a position to challenge 
 the strongest with even greater sense of 
 security, and there is none fit to try conclu- 
 sions with her. Labour costs her nothing, 
 her working-classes are intelligent, industrious, 
 artistic, and very docile; her captains of in- 
 dustry, taught in the leading schools and the 
 greatest establishments in Europe, are qualified 
 to lead the great masses just as her generals 
 were qualified to lead their troops. As to her 
 plant, it is as good as her armaments it is all 
 on the latest model and above criticism. 
 
 Japan, therefore, is in a better condition for 
 producing than either Europe or America, and 
 
 '9 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 as the Chinese clientele is at her gate, stretching 
 out its hands to her, and ready to give her pre- 
 ference over all competitors, there can scarcely 
 be any doubt as to her eventual victory, and it is 
 probable that before long she will be in com- 
 mand of a market of 400,000,000 consumers. 
 
 So great a revolution will never have been 
 witnessed since the beginning of the world, and 
 it is very late now to attempt to arrest it. And 
 Europe has not lacked warnings warnings have 
 come, indeed, from every direction. In France, 
 the Yellow Peril has been foretold long since by 
 M. Edmond Thery, one of the first to foretell it 
 at all ; and M. Thery foresaw only the economic 
 peril which now goes hand in hand with the 
 peril to national existence. He foretold the 
 economic all-powerfulness of this over-ambitious 
 race, whose growth was almost visible to the 
 naked eye, and which threatened all others with 
 commercial extinction. His predictions are in a 
 fair way to fulfilment, unless Europe, awaking 
 from her lethargy and forgetting all points of 
 difference, succeeds in finding some way of 
 combining for the protection of her vantage 
 points in Asia and of presenting an insuperable 
 barrier to the yellow invasion. The battle is not 
 yet lost; but mistakes must not be committed, 
 and time must not be lost. 
 
 20 
 
The Growth of Manufacture 
 
 IV 
 
 Having now outlined the economic chart 
 of the world, let us examine it a little more 
 closely, and try to see into the future. It is 
 manifest that the advent upon the scene of 
 the United States and Japan, pending that of 
 Canada, have turned completely upside down 
 the industrial situation in this old Europe of 
 ours, and what is pitiable is that Europe does 
 not seem to realize it. She orders her production 
 as though nothing had changed all round her, as 
 though she were still mistress of her destinies. 
 
 Yet the merest common sense should warn 
 her to be on her guard. In face of this universal 
 movement towards industrialism which has 
 not yet said its last word * this world-wide 
 
 * Every year sees some new nation take a step towards its 
 industrial emancipation. Mexico is now advancing with great 
 strides, and gaining ground every day. In the cotton industry 
 it possesses already 1,450,000 spindles, and 25,000 looms (? ) ; 
 in 1902 it counted already more than 6,000 industrial establish- 
 ments, giving occupation to 177,000 persons. 
 
 Soon Canada, in her turn, will enter upon the scene, and we 
 may look for an expansion in her case analogous to that of the 
 United States ; a land which produces already 250,000 tons of 
 cast-iron cannot stay its progress. 
 
 Even the seemingly most backward European nations are 
 beginning now to fall in with the universal tendency. Thus 
 Hungary, essentially an agricultural country, is manifesting its 
 
 21 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 competition which she has now to meet she 
 ought to see that her ambitions should be con- 
 trolled. She closes her eyes to this, however, 
 and does not even concentrate her energies 
 upon those particular articles of trade in which 
 she has some speciality, and the market for 
 which she might hope to retain. 
 
 It is only right to say that Germany is 
 primarily responsible for this onward progress. 
 Exalted by her proud position in the world, 
 carried along by her scientists and engineers 
 and financiers, and by her Government as well, 
 it was she who gave the first impulse to the 
 movement. The other nations have but followed 
 in her wake. 
 
 Her early successes were dazzling, and the 
 progress she made in a few years was marvellous. 
 It is true that the wealth of her natural resources, 
 for so long lying fallow, justified her ambitions. 
 Her coal mines, which contain reserves as great 
 as, if not greater than, those of England, and 
 her iron mines, which produce excellent material 
 for her foundries, enabled her to establish 
 
 intention of withdrawing its custom as a purchaser from Austria, 
 and of setting up industries of its own. With the help of 
 bonuses granted by the Hungarian Government, 96 new 
 manufactories were started in the country in the first three 
 months of 1904. Four of these were of paper, ten of chemical 
 products ; eight were ironworks. 
 
 22 
 
The Growth of Manufacture 
 
 metal industries that competed favourably for 
 all the markets of the world. She has added 
 chemical works which have won her a veritable 
 monopoly in this direction, so far in advance are 
 they of any others elsewhere ; her annual trade 
 in chemical goods alone amounts to the enor- 
 mous figure of 1,400,000,000 marks. 
 
 Its total exportation increased between 1903 
 and 1904 by over 30 per cent* 
 
 But if Germany is at the head of European 
 nations as regards the enormous total of her 
 exports, she is not now going ahead the fastest. 
 During the period 1890-1904, the exports of 
 Italy increased at the rate of 63 per cent, 
 those of Russia 57 per cent, Belgium 43 per 
 cent, Switzerland 26 per cent, France 19 per 
 cent, England 15 per cent, Austria 13 per cent 
 
 What is the meaning of this unless it be 
 that the productive countries of Europe have 
 been led, one after another, into the universal 
 movement, and that each of them, having first 
 made sure of a home market, has made efforts 
 
 * In the metal industry, Germany is establishing her' 
 supremacy more and more in place of that of England. Between 
 the years 1892 and 1902, Germany's metal exportation for 
 Europe, England included, increased by 72 per cent., while 
 that of England for Europe, Germany included, decreased by 
 43 per cent. 
 
 23 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 I 
 
 in its turn to poach upon the clientele of the 
 others and to get a footing on foreign markets ? 
 
 It is possible to see clearly now the course 
 that was taken by the great economic contest 
 of less than fifteen years ago between the 
 strongest nations. Two new giants stand face 
 to face, the United States and Germany, and 
 while fighting against each other, they fight 
 together against England. They dump down 
 deluges of cheap goods in their efforts to snatch 
 markets. The other nations, instead of avoiding 
 danger by restricting their production, keep 
 producing ever more and more, in the mad hope 
 of crushing their competitors. Each moves 
 forward blindly; the one question they never 
 ask themselves is, whether there be consumers 
 enough to justify their prodigality of produc- 
 tion. This is thought of only when the indus- 
 trial crisis has begun to rage everywhere, and 
 to endanger even the most flourishing industries. 
 
 We arrive, then, at our third period, into 
 which we came a few years ago, and which may, 
 perhaps, be designated as the period of over- 
 production and swollen markets. 
 
THE 
 INDUSTRIAL CONGESTION 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE INDUSTRIAL CONGESTION 
 
 I 
 
 "\ T 7E do no't close our eyes to the fact that the 
 * * very existence of this evil of over- 
 production is denied. We are asked to produce 
 scientific proofs of what we assert. 
 
 It must be admitted that scientific proofs are 
 not easily forthcoming. To adduce them we 
 should need to know the exact proportions 
 borne to each other by the world's supply and 
 demand. As yet we can only put our hand upon 
 statistics serving to give us some idea of the 
 amount of the supply. 
 
 The first tables of statistics to which we may 
 give our attention are those setting forth the 
 total output for the world of certain industries 
 which may be regarded as a barometer to all 
 the others an almost exact indicator to the 
 development of those industries which depend 
 upon them. The first is that of the collieries ; 
 coal constituting the motive power which keeps 
 
 27 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 industry alive, it is easy to deduce from the 
 extent of the output the degree of industrial 
 development that is attained. 
 
 Upon this point, as upon so many others, 
 
 / we may get our information from the Office 
 
 ^International cCAnvers, which was established 
 
 for the purpose of drawing up statistics of the 
 
 production of industry and of the progress of 
 
 trade all over the world ; we shall have occasion 
 
 to borrow more than once from its interesting 
 
 pages. The following are the figures it gives 
 
 for coal : 
 
 1870 203,000,000 tons. 
 
 1890 469,000,000 
 
 1900 694,000,000 
 
 1902 749,000,000 
 
 What I have said of coal may also be said 
 of iron, also the raw material of countless 
 industries. 
 
 The firm of James Watson and Co., of Glas- 
 gow, has recently published statistics of the pro- 
 duction of iron in all parts of the world in 1903. 
 From these it appears that the amount went 
 up from 39,000,000 tons in 1901, to 43,000,000 in 
 1902, and nearly 46,000,000 in 1903; an increase 
 of 15 per cent, in three years. Germany's output 
 alone increased within this period 25 per cent. 
 
 These years mark the beginning of the 
 28 
 
The Industrial Congestion 
 
 tendency towards over-production. The excep- 
 tional number of great public works just then 
 under construction combined with the develop- 
 ment of electric railways to provoke such an 
 immense demand that the workshops could not 
 meet it. The grave error was then made of 
 imagining that a condition of things which was 
 only temporary and accidental would become 
 permanent, and of proceeding to produce as 
 though the general consumption had become 
 doubled. 
 
 A still more extraordinary thing came about : 
 the industrial revival did not stop short at 
 metallurgy, which alone came in for the excep- 
 tional demands. The other industries, infected 
 by example, carried away by the high price of 
 coal, took it into their heads that the con- 
 sumption of their products also would go up 
 tremendously, and that we were on the verge 
 of an unparalleled season of permanent good 
 trade. The textile industries especially began 
 to expand everywhere, new factories springing 
 up as though by magic out of the earth. The 
 illusion was made all the greater because our 
 Exhibition of 1900, which was so brilliant and 
 did so much to reveal the marvellous progress 
 of technical industry, gave a fillip to consump- 
 tion; it was merely a fillip, unfortunately, as 
 
 29 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 was only too evident presently. A moment's 
 reflection ought to have sufficed to make us 
 reflect that consumption, especially nowadays, 
 does not make these leaps forward, and that if 
 it progresses it progresses slowly; and that if 
 it becomes surfeited, there is a tendency to 
 relapse. 
 
 The result of the imprudence was that the 
 great industrial countries, finding on their hands 
 a large surplus of merchandise, for which they 
 had no use, were forced to export it at any price 
 they could secure in order to avoid such a 
 "slump" internally, accompanied by stoppage 
 of work, as might give rise to an alarming social 
 crisis. 
 
 II 
 
 This is the only explanation that can be 
 given of the quite abnormal exports which have 
 marked the last few years, and which constitute 
 an economic event deserving of the most serious 
 attention, for it affects all countries equally. 
 There is no surer indication of the importance 
 of the production of a country and of its 
 economic development, especially in the case of 
 great industries such as those of metals and 
 textiles, than these sudden increases in the 
 
 30 
 
The Industrial Congestion 
 
 amount of their exports. For in these cases 
 what do the exports consist of if not of the 
 surplus stock for which no market can be found 
 at home, and which must therefore be disposed 
 of abroad ? 
 
 I do not mean that exports are always and 
 everywhere synonymous with over-production. 
 There are normal exports consisting of merchan- 
 dise provided specially for the foreigner. Until 
 recently these were the only kind of exports at 
 all. That was as long as we were still working 
 foreign markets which bid against each other for 
 certain classes of goods to such an extent that 
 the demand often exceeded the supply. 
 
 Things have been changing, however, and 
 now the great industries regard exports as 
 merely a method of disposing of their surplus 
 stocks ; when the home market is active and 
 buying largely they diminish or suspend their 
 exports, as we have seen of late years in the 
 United States, where the metal industry, finding 
 its enormous output entirely taken up for the 
 construction of railways, etc., ceased exporting 
 altogether for a time until the home demand had 
 been satisfied. 
 
 The distinguishing mark of these exports, 
 generally speaking, is the fact that they are 
 effected in great bulk and at very low prices 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 "liquidation exports" they have been desig- 
 nated not incorrectly. It is notorious that of 
 recent years exports of this kind have been the 
 chief figure in the commercial statistics of the 
 great producing countries.* 
 
 If only one market, or only a few markets, 
 were glutted at a time, the economic equilibrium 
 would soon be re-established by the flow of the 
 surplus output upon the markets in good condi- 
 tion ; but it has sometimes happened that all the 
 great markets have been glutted simultaneously. 
 No need to describe the prodigious effort, and 
 the enormous sacrifices made by each country 
 to get the better of the others. Trusts, cartels, 
 industrial unions, have been found indispen- 
 sable, if superficial, methods of saving the 
 situation. 
 
 Having, then, established the truth of the 
 fact, that the advance in exports is a sure index 
 to the home production of a country, let us see 
 
 * The very nature of these exports proves the truth of what 
 is said above. It is to be noted that they consist chiefly of 
 merchandise universally in demand and such as most countries 
 can produce for themselves, and that they go to markets which 
 could quite well dispense with them. There can, for instance, 
 be no doubt that when Germany sends her cast-iron to Belgium, 
 Great Britain, and the United States, it is not because these 
 countries are unable to produce enough for their own use, it is 
 because the German market is glutted and must be eased at 
 any price. 
 
 32 
 
The Industrial Congestion 
 
 now what our commercial statistics have to tell 
 us upon this point. Thanks to the Antwerp 
 Statistical Bureau, we have the advantage of 
 being put in possession of them all for the whole 
 world, and are able, therefore, to form a precise 
 notion of the course of production during the 
 last few years. Here are the figures for the 
 entire world for the years 1897, 1902, and 1903. 
 
 Francs. 
 
 Total Exports in 1897 ... 46,000,000,000 
 1902 ... 56,000,000,000 
 
 1903 ... 6o,OOOjOOO,OOO 
 
 If we bear in mind the fact that the year 1902 
 was one of the most calamitous for industries 
 of every description, the significance of this 
 advance of 4000 millions in a single year will 
 come home to us ; * it enables us to form some 
 notion of the increase of the world's production, 
 but only a faint and quite inadequate notion. 
 All it tells us of is the surplus stock which 
 could not be utilized. It gives us no idea of 
 the increase in the home production consumed 
 internally. This must have exceeded very 
 
 * For Europe alone the total exports, amounting in 1875 to 
 only 22,000,000,000 francs, had reached 34,000,000,000 in 1902 
 an increase of 12,000,000,000 in twenty-seven years ; but in 1903 
 there was a further advance to 36,800,000,000. In the light of 
 these figures, the industrial crisis does not seem surprising. 
 
 33 D 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 considerably the' records of previous years, 
 judging from the statistics of certain individual 
 industries. 
 
 I ought not to seem to minimize, however, 
 the total increase of 14,000 millions for the 
 seven years an increase representing the 
 growth of what I may call the floating world's 
 merchandise, inasmuch as it floats about in 
 search of an outlet. 
 
 No one would venture to contend seriously 
 that in this short space of time the normal con- 
 sumption of the world had developed in propor- 
 tion. The increase in the world's population, 
 which is sometimes invoked by way of ex- 
 plaining matters, does not warrant any such 
 theory ; its rate of advance is infinitely more 
 slow and regular.* 
 
 Nor can it be maintained that the advance in 
 general prosperity an important factor in regard 
 to consumption suffices to explain so rapid a 
 rise in production. Prosperity also progresses 
 regularly, not by leaps and bounds; to satisfy 
 ourselves of this, we have but to examine the 
 statistics of the wealth of the different nations. 
 
 * According to the statistics, which seem to be most carefully 
 compiled and most trustworthy in every way those made out 
 by our great French statistician, M. Levasseur the popu- 
 lation of the world in 1878, was 1,439,600,000; in 1890, 
 1,483,000,000 ; in 1904, 1,523,000,000. 
 
 34 
 
The Industrial Congestion 
 
 Nowhere except in the United States* can we 
 find record of any such extraordinary advance 
 in the condition of the well-to-do; as for the 
 worker, he is doubtless better housed and better 
 fed than formerly, and able to afford pleasures 
 unknown to his class fifty years ago, but in 1900 
 he was in very much the same state that he is 
 in now. 
 
 Therefore no other explanation can be given 
 of the extraordinary increase of exports than 
 the fact that most of the markets are glutted 
 as a result of over-production. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The Germans recognize this fact, and we 
 must do them the justice of admitting that, after 
 being one of the chief causes of the industrial 
 crisis, they are now seeking to repair their fault. 
 As soon as they realized that their excess of 
 production threatened them with an imminent 
 crash, they made efforts to save their market by 
 empirical methods : they organized their cartels 
 with the utmost possible astuteness. 
 
 Thanks to their tariff, which enabled them to 
 
 * The wealth of the United States, estimated at 42,000,000,000 
 dollars in 1880, rose, in 1900 to 94,000,000,000 ; this works out 
 at 1235 dollars a head instead of 850. 
 
 35 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 raise their prices for their home market, they 
 were able to levy " drawbacks" which for a certain 
 time gave them an incontestable advantage over 
 all their rivals. The mechanism of " dumping " 
 is too well known to need any enlargement upon 
 it here, and a discussion of this subject would 
 take us too far. I confine myself, therefore, 
 to adducing the phenomenon of these cartels* 
 as a striking proof of the excess of production 
 in Germany. 
 
 But the German manufacturers, who are 
 essentially practical men, realized presently that 
 this kind of wholesale pouring out of exports 
 was only a temporary expedient, and not a 
 remedy. It relieved the glutted market for the 
 time being, but if the over-production were to 
 be kept up, if stocks were to be replenished 
 as quickly as they were thus disposed of, the 
 evil would become endemic, and there would 
 be no issue to the crisis. 
 
 Thus they were brought to the conclusion 
 that, sooner or later, when the home market 
 
 * It is thanks to these cartels, as I have said, that the ex- 
 ports of iron from Germany for Europe alone have increased 
 to 72 per cent., while those from England have decreased by 
 43 per cent. The German exports to other countries, not 
 including the United States, have increased from 1,544,000 tons 
 in 1897 to 2,000,000 tons in 1902. 
 
 36 
 
The Industrial Congestion 
 
 became congested a limit must be put upon pro- 
 duction. All other measures are mere palliatives. 
 
 In order to effect this, they again had recourse 
 to cartels for the regulation of production, 
 reducing it to a certain fixed degree, and distri- 
 buting it among the various syndicated establish- 
 ments. This division is carried out with perfect 
 equity according to the productive capacity of 
 the factories and to the state of the market ; 
 each manufacturer knows in advance the limit 
 assigned to him, and he has no temptation to 
 go beyond it. 
 
 German industry has just taken a still more 
 daring step in this directiona step which no 
 one couldihave foreseen. Not content with thus 
 checking manufacturers at home, it has quite 
 recently put forward proposals for an under- 
 standing with its most redoubtable rivals abroad. 
 
 This is no news. Every one is aware to-day 
 that the German steel cartel (Stahlwerkband) has 
 invited the English, Belgian, and French manu- 
 facturers of steel rails, girders, etc., to come to 
 an understanding by which each nation con- 
 tracting would limit its participation in the 
 exporting of these articles to a certain fixed 
 figure, the factories of each country preserv- 
 ing, of course, their individuality and inde- 
 pendence. The understanding has now been 
 
 37 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 definitely come to, and it is believed that it 
 will presently take in the United States. 
 
 This new species of combination is certainly 
 one of the most important economical events 
 of the last few years. There is no need to 
 inquire as to the results which it has had upon 
 the industries affected, and which cannot but 
 be favourable. If we have devoted so much 
 attention to it, that is because it supplies us 
 with the strongest argument in support of our 
 thesis. 
 
 This entente, to which the most powerful 
 industrial nations in the world found themselves 
 obliged to come, is surely the most striking 
 proof of the general state of over-production. 
 It is a recognition that there is no longer 
 room for every one on the export markets, and 
 that the wisest course is to come to terms 
 and to reduce the supply of merchandise to the 
 demand. 
 
 From all this we are forced to the conclusion 
 that the upward tendency of industrial produc- 
 tion will soon cease, and that production will 
 be kept afterwards within the limits imposed by 
 consumption. 
 
 It is because we foresee this inevitable 
 evolution that we wish to help it by preparing 
 the passage from one state of things to another, 
 
 38 
 
The Industrial Congestion 
 
 and by seeking means to cope with the 
 untoward effects it may bring about in other 
 fields of labour. 
 
 IV 
 
 But, as we have said, our thesis is challenged 
 by many people, and we must pass under review 
 the objections they advance. 
 
 First of all, there are the persistent optimists 
 who are not to be alarmed by anything, and 
 attribute all crises to the nature of the laws of 
 economy, or who rather deny the existence of 
 any crisis at all, and hold that over-production 
 is merely the bogey of ill-ordered minds. The 
 proof that it is a phantom, they tell us, is to be 
 found in the fact that everything that is pro- 
 duced is sold, and that there are purchasers 
 always for everything; there has never been a 
 case of merchandise being thrown into the sea 
 for lack of buyers. 
 
 Doubtless, the producers will always prefer 
 to sell cheap rather than not at all, but it is also 
 certain that consumers are not always to be 
 tempted by mere cheapness. It is upon this 
 disastrous delusion that rest the wholesale ex- 
 ports, which have been becoming so general. If 
 industry is to be carried on upon such lines, so 
 
 39 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 be it; but don't let it be denied that over-pro- 
 duction exists, for these low prices are proof 
 positive of the fact. 
 
 When production is normal and in accordance 
 with the needs of consumption, the consumer 
 runs after the producer, who is master of the 
 situation, and sees to it that the price paid shall 
 yield him his due profits. When, on the contrary, 
 it exceeds the needs of consumption, it is the 
 producer who has to run after the consumer, 
 offering his goods at a reduction, in order to 
 have the advantage of his competitors; under- 
 selling becomes a regular thing, trade goes to 
 the bad. This is all inevitable an economic 
 law which no one can hope to escape. 
 
 And this law has been manifesting itself now 
 for twenty years with painful persistency ; it has 
 been set out in relief by a great English statis- 
 tician, Mr. Sauerbeck, who for thirty years and 
 more has been devoting his powerful intellect 
 to a study of the oscillation of the different 
 markets, noting their movements day by day, 
 and embodying the result of his observations 
 in formulae of great interest and the utmost 
 precision. 
 
 In order to put his conclusions intelligibly 
 before the general public, scarcely an courant 
 with such abstruse problems, he has selected 
 
 40 
 
The Industrial Congestion 
 
 in his classification of merchandise those which 
 do the biggest trade by reason of their uni- 
 versal utility. He takes forty-five of these, and 
 begins by establishing their average price for 
 the period 1869 to 1877 the period preceding 
 the great industrial movement of the end of the 
 nineteenth century. He makes this average 
 price the basis of his further calculations, by 
 representing it by the figure 100, above and 
 below which he watches the rise and fall of the 
 value of these goods month by month and year 
 by year. 
 
 If you want to take note of the general trend 
 of prices since 1877, you need only take the 
 extreme figures, the first figure of all, the average 
 between 1869 and 1877, and the figure for 1904. 
 There is a fall there from 100 to 70 a decrease 
 of 30 per cent. It is only right to point out that, 
 in the interval, prices have varied considerably, 
 going down in 1896 and 1897 to 61 and 62, rising 
 in 1900 to 75 and going down again to 69 in 1902 
 and 1903. But these oscillations themselves do 
 but confirm the general law that we are en- 
 deavouring to establish; on the one hand, the 
 constant downward tendency for the last twenty- 
 five years, on the other hand, the coincidence of 
 low prices with over-production. 
 
 But, it will be said, you are overlooking two 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 essential factors, which explain the inevitable 
 lowering of prices, quite apart from any question 
 of over-production: the growing cheapness of 
 raw material and the progress of machinery. 
 We admit the existence of both these factors. 
 No one could deny what is so manifest. But 
 they are not enough to account for the abnor- 
 mally low prices. The extent to which they 
 affect the cost price of industries is easily calcu- 
 lated. Every manufacturer knows exactly how 
 much difference is made for him by a reduction 
 in the cost of raw material the difference is not 
 so great as we are asked to believe, except 
 perhaps in the case of cotton ; he knows also 
 what saving is involved in the improvements of 
 machinery, and when he complains of prices 
 becoming low, he is, of course, allowing fully for 
 these economies. On the other hand, it is to be 
 remembered that if raw material has become 
 cheaper, manual labour in most industries has 
 become a good deal dearer. 
 
 If you ask a mill-owner or a weaver, for 
 instance, to tell you the cost price of his goods 
 and the price at which he has sold them in 1897 
 and this year, he will have no difficulty in con- 
 vincing you that his sale price has decreased to 
 an infinitely greater degree than his cost price. 
 The calculation has been recently worked out 
 
 42 
 
The Industrial Congestion 
 
 very carefully by the syndicate of the Textiles 
 Union for " Warp 28 " the classical number for 
 cotton; in order to place its statement outside 
 the realms of discussion, the Union has separated 
 the working expenses from the price of the raw 
 material, and records that the margin left to the 
 manufacturer on his sale price for the working 
 expenses went down from i franc 56 centimes 
 in 1865 to 60 centimes in 1903. 
 
 What has caused the present crisis for a great 
 many industries is not small profits, but sale 
 below cost value, forcing them year after year 
 to make encroachments upon capital. The crisis 
 must last until a balance has been struck between 
 supply and demand, and this is only to be 
 brought about by a systematic restriction of 
 production in accordance with the needs of the 
 different markets. Willy-nilly, we must come to 
 this restriction sooner or later, in some shape or 
 form, and the country that attempts it first will 
 be well repaid. 
 
 43 
 
FRANCE. IMPROVEMENTS IN 
 MACHINERY 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 FRANCE. IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY 
 I 
 
 TJAVING made the circuit of the world, let 
 *- -*- us turn our attention now to France, to 
 appreciate whose present economical status this 
 general survey was necessary. Her relations 
 with all the other countries make her part and 
 parcel of the universal movement. 
 
 In common with the other nations, France 
 has seen old-established and valuable markets 
 closed to her, according as her customers in 
 different regions have developed, and have 
 established industries in rivalry with hers. 
 Yet other rnarkets have been snatched from 
 her by stronger rivals for instance, those in 
 South America, which, in part, she has seen 
 pass into the hands of Germany and of the 
 United States. 
 
 Thus her economical situation might have 
 become very serious, and have resulted in the 
 wrecking of her chief industries, if her colonies 
 
 47 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 had not come into existence in time to supply 
 fresh markets. The colonial policy of France 
 was her salvation, and the country can never be 
 too grateful to Jules Ferry for his foresight in 
 thus saving her from commercial ruin. 
 
 It must be said, however, for the commercial 
 classes in France, that they are by nature more 
 prudent than those of other countries, though 
 some of our industries have of recent years 
 fallen into the mistake of over-production. 
 
 Let us take note of certain significant data 
 which are at hand. It is now some years since 
 M. Edmond Thery, that eminent economist, 
 drew attention to the danger of over-production 
 in a preface he contributed to M. Francis Laur's 
 informing work upon monopolies. He pointed 
 out very justly that, in order to form an estimate 
 of the extent of our industries, it was quite 
 unnecessary to make out an elaborate table of 
 statistics, and that there was a much simpler 
 and easier way of arriving at the facts : namely, 
 that of ascertaining the total horse-power 
 employed in our manufactories. This figure 
 indicates as nearly as possible the importance 
 and extent of our entire industrial machinery, 
 and in consequence of our production. 
 
 Recognizing the truth of this, let us leave 
 on one side the figures adduced by M. Thery, 
 
 48 
 
France, Improvements in Machinery 
 
 which are now some years out of date, and let 
 us apply his method to the data furnished by 
 the latest statistics issued by our Ministry of 
 Commerce. 
 
 The horse-power in use in French industries 
 in 1890 amounted to 863,000; ten years later, in 
 1900, the figure is more than doubled, 1,791,000. 
 Since 1890, there has been a still higher rate 
 of increase, the figure having reached 1,994,989 
 in 1902. Among the industries that have 
 developed most speedily is that of metals, 
 which employed in 1890 only 167,584 horse- 
 power, while in 1902 it employs 354,856. The 
 increase shown by the textile industries is 
 greater still, the figure having been 172,999 in 
 1890 and 434,529 in 1902. 
 
 To give life to these cold facts, we should 
 have recourse to M. Thery's method, and calcu- 
 late, as he does, the amount of manual labour 
 of which all tfiis machinery takes the place ; a 
 simple calculation, given the principle accepted 
 by experts, that one-horse power is the equiva- 
 lent of the labour of twenty-one men. Thus it 
 is that M. Thery comes finally to the conclusion 
 that, as regards production we are in the same 
 position as though our working-class population 
 had tripled, and as though every French citizen 
 had at his service three iron slaves, the upkeep 
 
 49 E 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 of which does not cost more than five centimes 
 a day. 
 
 Let us now look a little more closely into the 
 condition of some of our great industries, taking 
 from the Statistical Annual of the Ministry of 
 Commerce particulars of other kinds, so as to 
 give its full value to the argument already 
 drawn from the horse-power figures. 
 
 II 
 
 Let us take the cotton industry, for instance ; 
 it is an easy matter to follow its development. 
 The raw material comes entirely from abroad, 
 and our custom-house statistics tell in exactly 
 what quantities. The total amount in 1890 
 was 2,500,000 cwt, excluding what was re- 
 exported; in 1900, the figure increased to 
 3,142,000 cwt. Then comes an almost incredible 
 rise to 4,376,000 cwt. in 1903. If in 1904 the 
 figure came down to 2,500,000, that is due 
 entirely to the fact that the price of cotton had 
 doubled. 
 
 Who would venture to declare that this 
 increase was normal and in response to the 
 demand? No doubt, the uses oi cotton are 
 being extended unceasingly it is used in 
 
 50 
 
France* Improvements in Machinery 
 
 everything nowadays, and is often turned to 
 accounts for which it is not suited but this 
 has been true for some considerable time past, 
 and is not the outcome merely of the last few 
 years. 
 
 When we see the number of spindles in- 
 creasing in five years between 1898 and 1903 
 from 5,300,000 to 6,150,000; and that of looms, 
 in the eastern district alone, from 46,000 to 
 54,000, it is difficult to believe that the normal 
 consumption has increased in the same degree. 
 The truth is, that many of those who manu- 
 factured at so feverish a rate in 1900 were not 
 thinking of the consumption at all. All they 
 thought of was the high prices then in vogue 
 prices wfrfch they quite wrongly took as 
 heralds of a permanent revival, and of the 
 beginning of a new era of prosperity. If they 
 had only looked round them attentively, they 
 would have been warned by several other 
 symptoms that their output was more than 
 sufficient. In a kindred industry, that of wool, 
 there had come about a state of things from 
 which cotton was bound to suffer. 
 
 We all know through what difficulties the 
 woollen industry has had to pass, and how 
 genius alone has been able to save it. Together 
 with the silk industry, it constituted one of our 
 
- - 
 
 The Return to the Land 
 
 principal exports, and therefore it was affected 
 more than others by the great movement which 
 we have already analysed and which impelled 
 the majority of nations to establish at home all 
 those branches of manufactory for which they 
 were dependent upon the foreigner. Wool 
 could not escape from their general law any 
 more than silk could. In succession, Germany, 
 the United States, Austria, Russia, and Spain 
 were to be found developing their production 
 of wool and depriving the French industry of 
 a great part of its market. France had just 
 won a footing for its woollen goods in Japan, 
 when that country also began to prepare to 
 do without us.* 
 
 In so critical a situation, what should we 
 have done in order to come to the assistance of 
 one of our great national industries? Our first 
 duty was to seek all possible means of enabling 
 her to fight for the foreign markets, and, to this 
 end, of diminishing her cost of production. 
 
 We did just the opposite we were at pains 
 to increase in every way the burdens weighing 
 
 * Japan has just constructed three great manufactories for 
 muslin our most important item. One of these is at Osaka, 
 the other two are at Tokio. If we remember that the working- 
 day in Japan is of fifteen or even seventeen hours, at an average 
 wage of 25 centimes a day, we can form some idea of the 
 industrial struggle we must soon encounter. 
 
 52 
 
France, Improvements in Machinery 
 
 upon the industry. Our import duties are the 
 highest known, and we keep on raising them 
 continually.* New restrictions, new trammels, 
 involving loss of time and of money, are being 
 invented daily by our Ministry of Commerce. 
 Finally, we reduced the working-day by two 
 hours, thus^giving an enormous advantage to 
 our rivals without asking for anything in return. 
 
 While all other countries are doing whatever 
 lies in their power to encourage and support 
 their national industries, we seem to take a 
 malign pleasure in fettering ours. Our idea of 
 benefiting the working-man seems to consist 
 of providing that he shall work as little as 
 possible, t 
 
 In the woollen industry, numerous manu- 
 factories have been closed : nineteen at Rheims ; 
 thirty-nine at Fourmies ; three at Tourcoing ; 
 others at St. Quentin. 
 
 These closings have had a quite unforeseen 
 
 * The Socie*t de 1'Industrie Lainiere de Fourmies satisfied 
 a Parliamentary commission that in France taxes upon wool 
 are three times higher than they are in Belgium. In the same 
 way, the Union des Industries Textiles has established the fact 
 that the trade has to pay 12 francs in taxation in France, while 
 in England it pays only 9.06. 
 
 t The Italian Government, wishing to develop the industry 
 in the south of Italy, has granted new establishments immunity 
 from all taxation for ten years, and has permitted them to 
 import all other necessary plant free of duty. 
 
 53 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 issue, which leads us back to what we were 
 saying about the cotton industry. Certain 
 woollen manufactories, wishing to fight to the 
 last against evil fortune, have been transformed 
 into cotton manufactories rather than be 
 abandoned altogether. In this way the pro- 
 duction of cotton has been started at Fourmies 
 and considerably increased at St. Quentin. It 
 was necessary to draw attention to these facts 
 because they show that there was no need to 
 construct new looms. 
 
 The condition of the cotton industry in 
 France was to become the more grave in that it 
 has been developing extraordinarily elsewhere 
 of recent years, and that our rivals, not satisfied 
 with providing for their own needs, have passed 
 from the defensive to the offensive, and have 
 made inroads on all the markets which formerly 
 we supplied.* 
 
 * Germany has increased her export of cotton by 30 per cent., 
 Belgium by 20 per cent. In the United States, 270 new cotton 
 factories have been established since 1900, and the number of 
 spindles has gone from 15,000,000 to 21,000,000. Italy has 
 made giant's strides within a few years. Her exports of cotton 
 goods, which amounted in 1887 to only 620,000 kilos, increased 
 to 12,350,000 in 1900 an increase of 1892 per cent.! She is on 
 the way to undermining British influence in Asia Minor, as is 
 evidenced by the growth of her imports at Aleppo. 
 
 As for the United States, they have increased, their textile 
 industries enormously between 1890 and 1900. Thus cotton 
 
 54 
 
France* Improvements in Machinery 
 
 N And what we have said of woollen and cotton 
 goods can be said equally of our silk, which 
 formerly was mistress of the whole world, but 
 which now is having inroads made on it every- 
 where, in Germany, Italy, Switzerland, the 
 United States, and which has begun to find a 
 new and still more formidable competitor in 
 Japan.* 
 
 If we pass now to the metal industry, we 
 shall find that it also has passed through the 
 same illusions and the same ordeals. It also 
 was misled by the rise in prices and the large 
 demands caused by the great public works and 
 by the Paris Exhibition. It also went beyond 
 the limit, as is evidenced by the increase in the 
 number of blast furnaces, and now it is obliged 
 to mark time like the rest. What saved it and 
 enabled it to extricate itself from the crisis more 
 
 spindles have gone from 14,000,000 to 15,000,000 ; looms from 
 324,000 to 490,000 ; looms for wool from 67,000 to 80,000 ; those 
 for hosiery from 36,00010 75,000 ; spindles for silk from 718,000 
 to 1,426,000, and those for looms for silk from 20,000 to 
 48,000. 
 
 * The amount of raw material taken by the different 
 countries enables us to realize the progress made by our 
 competitors ; the increase in the consumption of silk, which has 
 been 31 per cent, for the other European nations, 83 per cent, 
 for the United States, has only been 10 per cent, for France. 
 Since 1898, the production in the United States has been 
 greater than with us. Their production in 1898 was 237,000 
 kilos ; now it is 1,850,000. 
 
 55 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 speedily than certain other industries, was the 
 fact that it had the courage to reduce its output 
 the moment it discovered that it had been going 
 ahead too fast. 
 
 I have enlarged upon these points because 
 of the great importance of the industries 
 concerned, employing as they do a very 
 considerable number of workmen 500,000 in 
 metallurgy, 800,000 in textiles and because it 
 is these industries that have developed most, 
 and that for several years past have been most 
 affected by the general condition of surfeit. 
 
 There are, however, very few industries that 
 have not been tempted into over-production of 
 late. Every one is anxious nowadays to make 
 his fortune, and business is generally regarded 
 as the shortest way towards the goal. New- 
 comers neglect to ascertain whether there be 
 room for them. They do not realize how things 
 have changed. They have heard how people 
 have succeeded in the past beyond all hope, and 
 they have no doubt that they will have the same 
 good fortune. The temptation is all the more 
 strong in that there are no limitations to 
 industrial production; herein it differs pro- 
 foundly from agriculture, which is perforce kept 
 within the bounds of the cultivable land. In 
 business the field of activity is limitless. You 
 
 56 
 
France. Improvements in Machinery 
 
 can build factories and instal looms and spindles 
 to any degree you will. 
 
 What is even more dangerous than the 
 temptation to build is that temptation to expand 
 which comes to every one in business, and which 
 seems to point in the direction of his best 
 interests. For the more he produces, the more 
 he reduces his general expenses, the more he 
 lowers his net costs, the greater his advantages 
 over his competitors : herein lurks a perpetual 
 temptation to the manufacturer against which 
 even the most prudent even those most op- 
 posed in theory to over-production are not 
 proof. Industrial pressure, this new pheno- 
 menon that to-day is assuming proportions that 
 begin to be disquieting, is to be attributed to 
 no other cause than this. Every one hopes to 
 crush his rivals by the mass of his production, 
 and to remain a solitary victor on the stricken 
 field. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Upon this theme we have now to face the 
 views of the foes of our economical doctrine, 
 pointing in triumph at all this over-production 
 and exclaiming : " There is the fatal, inevitable 
 outcome of protection. Over-production is its 
 
 57 
 
 -'"" ~' 
 
 >F TH ' 
 
 'CT5,rM-*-.r \S 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 natural fruit, and protectionists have no right to 
 complain about it : they are but reaping what 
 they have sown. The exceptional advantages 
 created by protection for the favoured industries 
 prove too effective a fillip, and urge them into 
 over-production. Every one makes for the field 
 in which most money is to be earned, and only 
 realizes his mistake when he has gone too far. 
 Free trade would preserve us from such 
 dangers; no one would venture to produce 
 before assuring himself of purchasers. The 
 falling off of the price would suffice to warn the 
 producer and to keep him back. It would be a 
 check on the most ardent." 
 
 The reasoning is specious, but it is not borne 
 out by the facts of experience. We would not 
 deny that the protectionist system does stimulate 
 production by encouraging industry, and that 
 its influence in this direction is apt to be exces- 
 sive. But it is to be hoped that our manu- 
 facturers will realize presently that the fierce 
 rivalry against each other they are now waging, 
 robs them of the benefits of protective legisla- 
 tion, and that a wise compact would be more to 
 their interest than all this relentless strife. 
 
 But it would be a grave mistake to suppose 
 that under free trade the state of things would 
 be improved. It is obvious that a manufacturer 
 
 53 
 
France. Improvements in Machinery 
 
 who is obliged to seek his purchasers all over 
 the world, and who cannot even count upon 
 those in his own special market, must live in 
 a state of perpetual uncertainty, and cannot 
 possibly know the real extent of the demand as 
 well as he who lives under a protectionist 
 regime, and who knows at least what purchasers 
 he will find at home ; the former has to produce 
 more or less " on spec" and in the dark, whereas 
 the latter sees clearly how he stands. 
 
 Another influence which works more strongly 
 under free trade than under protection is the 
 necessity of producing in large quantities, so as 
 to diminish working expenses and keep down 
 the net cost. It is because she has been slipping 
 down the fatal incline for fifty years past that 
 England has increased her output beyond all 
 measure, and now finds herself in possession of 
 manufactories and plant quite out of proportion 
 to her steadily decreasing clientele throughout the 
 world. 
 
 This is so true, and she is being carried along 
 at such a speed, that at this very moment on 
 the morrow of the crisis which threatened so 
 gravely her cotton industry a year ago she is 
 going ahead again full tilt on her career of over- 
 production with a blindness that is amazing. 
 The English newspapers tell us that new mills 
 
 59 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 are being erected in Lancashire representing 
 something like 2000 looms and 2,000,000 spindles ! 
 And that at a time when it is being noted in 
 every corner of the globe that the production of 
 cotton is far surpassing the demand. 
 
 IV 
 
 The truth is that over-production is at present 
 an endemic evil, which rages alike under pro- 
 tection and under free trade; apart from the 
 influences at which we have glanced, it has quite 
 another and very powerful generator, namely, 
 the increasing progress in the perfecting of 
 machinery. Whether this take the form of quite 
 new inventions or the improvement and develop- 
 ment of old, the result is the same : the diminu- 
 tion of hand-labour and the reduction of the 
 number of hands. No one can interfere with 
 this, and we encounter here one of those 
 primordial economic laws against which it is 
 vain to rebel, however regrettable their results. 
 
 It furnishes us with a decisive answer to 
 another objection, very grave at first sight, 
 which is advanced by those who refuse absolutely 
 to admit that there is such a phenomenon as 
 over-production. "Your fears are vain," they 
 say ; " over-production is merely an accidental 
 
 60 
 
France, Improvements in Machinery 
 
 thing that corrects itself, and this will prove the 
 case now as always. After a certain period of 
 slackness, during which there will be a natural 
 abatement in production, the market will return 
 to its healthier condition ; the demand will 
 become stronger again, new purchasers will 
 make their appearance, and equilibrium will be 
 re-established. All is well that ends well." 
 
 I am far from seeing things in this opti- 
 mistic light, but, granting that it be so, for 
 the sake of argument, the theory leaves out of 
 account this factor of which I have spoken 
 the unceasing and unlimited perfecting of 
 machinery. 
 
 This process of perfecting proceeds at an 
 unheard-of pace. The United States make some 
 new invention every day which has the effect of 
 reducing the number of workmen required 
 such as the new cotton loom which requires but 
 one workman to every eight or even twelve 
 looms. It is true that this particular loom does 
 not yet yield good results, except with common 
 coarse stuffs, but who shall say that some means 
 will not be discovered of adapting it to finer 
 material ? In this case it will involve the 
 suppression of half the manual labour now 
 required. The Americans have invented all 
 kinds of wonderful machines performing tasks 
 
 61 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 so delicate and difficult that the supplest human 
 hands cannot compete with them.* 
 
 There is no reason, therefore, why in time 
 workmen should not be almost entirely replaced 
 by the slave of iron alluded to by M. Thery. 
 The results of this gradual elimination of 
 manual labour have begun to make themselves 
 
 * M. Jules Huret, in his very suggestive and interesting 
 book on the United States, "De New York a New Orleans," 
 gives us a humorous account of one of these marvellous 
 American machines which he saw in a metal foundry. " A tall 
 turret with gigantic arms set in motion by one man, glided 
 about over the immense room, taking up out of the furnaces as 
 it passed great plates of steel, 50 centimetres thick, raising 
 them aloft, turning them round, replacing them in other furnaces, 
 or putting them on the cylinders of the rolling-mills (?), making 
 a thousand gestures so swift and unexpected that I simply 
 could not follow them, and pirouetting round with all the 
 graces of a ballet-dancer ! Literally, it waltzed ! We rushed 
 about after it and its inmate, but of a sudden it would threaten 
 us with its agile and mighty arm, and we slipped to one side. 
 This is a true description. It all seemed like a nightmare, and 
 I kept asking myself whether I was not dreaming. I think it 
 was of this Hoffmannesque engine that the American manager 
 sai to me 
 
 " ' Not good enough, this. I've asked the Board for half a 
 million dollars to construct a new one, which shall be twice as 
 practical.' 
 
 " * And what will you do with this one sell it ? ' 
 
 " He smiled. 
 
 "'Not likely. We shall "scrap" it. We are often asked 
 to sell our machines to Europe, but we always refuse. It 
 would be bad policy to provide our rivals with our own special 
 arms.' " 
 
 62 
 
France* Improvements in Machinery 
 
 felt already in our great industries, and it is 
 possible to figure them out exactly. 
 
 Let us take, for instance, the English cotton 
 industry. In 1891, it counted 45,000,000 spindles ; 
 now it counts 47,000,000, an increase of 3*6 per 
 cent. Has the number of workmen increased in 
 proportion? Not at all far from increasing, it 
 has been diminished by 3*8 per cent, going down 
 from 605,000 in 1891, to 582,000 in 1901. In 
 France, we should certainly be able to record 
 the same result, if our official statistics were as 
 well made out as the English. 
 
 Our Annuaire de Commerce furnishes us, how- 
 ever, with sufficient data regarding the metal 
 industries. It establishes the fact that in 1901, 
 72,000 workmen were employed in the produc- 
 tion of 1,000,743 tons, while in 1902 only 68,000 
 were employed in the production of 1,000,885 a 
 diminution of 4,000. 
 
 The conclusion to be drawn from these facts, 
 which are but a feeble indication of what the 
 future has in store for us, is manifest, and has 
 been formulated with admirable precision by the 
 great American statistician, Edward Atkinson, 
 whose words I may here cite textually : " The 
 time is not far distant," he declares, "when even 
 in the textile industry the same conditions will 
 prevail that we find in the metal foundries 
 
 63 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 to-day : you will scarcely see a single hand in the 
 workshop. Workmen will become fewer and 
 fewer, the work being all done automatically, 
 until at last the manufactories shall have become 
 nothing but mechanical contrivances, conducted 
 by a few experts keeping an eye on the machines, 
 and with only a very few specially chosen skilful 
 hands employed in the weaving rooms." 
 
 Thus, even in the collective industries indi- 
 viduality, personal capacity, and aptitude, will 
 come to prevail more and more, and though the 
 manufactories may increase in number, and their 
 output become ever greater, the proportion of 
 ordinary hands will steadily decrease. 
 
 
MERCHANTS AND WORKMEN 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 MERCHANTS AND WORKMEN 
 
 I 
 
 p 
 
 /""\UR French workmen, who have an instinc- 
 ^^ tive dread of this danger, endeavour to 
 ward it off by refusing to adapt themselves to 
 the progress of machinery ; we find them going 
 out on strike when their employer calls on them 
 to manage four spindles at a time as in England. 
 Many of them draw the line at two spindles. 
 The unfortunate fellows imagine they are doing 
 a good thing when they oblige their employer to 
 find occupation for as many of them as possible, 
 not perceiving that they are thus preventing him 
 from improving their lot and from increasing 
 their wages. Yet the figures are there to open 
 their eyes, and to enable them to see how things 
 really stand : the American cotton-weaver, who 
 attends to eight spindles, earns sixty-two francs 
 a week; the Englishman, who attends to four, 
 earns thirty; while the Frenchman, with two, 
 
 67 F 2 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 earns only twenty-four. Yet the French work- 
 man, who earns less than the American or the 
 Englishman, costs his employer much more and 
 augments his working expenses to a very con- 
 siderable extent; his labour represents 12 francs 
 to each spindle, while the Englishman's is only 
 7*50 and the American's 7*80. 
 
 What is the result ? Simply that the French 
 merchant is handicapped in the competition, and 
 thus loses a proportion of his trade, to the great 
 detriment of the workmen. It must be admitted 
 that the truth of this is now gradually beginning 
 to come home to the workmen themselves, and 
 that in consequence some of them are seeing the 
 wisdom of agreeing to work the four spindles. 
 
 There is, of course, no doubt that the inevit- 
 able result of the advances made in industrial 
 machinery will be a reduction in the number of 
 workmen employed, and that we find ourselves 
 thus face to face with an economic and social 
 problem for which some satisfactory solution 
 must at all costs be found. How is work to be 
 found for all the hands that will be thrown idle 
 upon the market ? It will be for economists and 
 statesmen to inquire into this serious state of 
 affairs, and to devise some means for facilitating 
 the transition to a new order of things. 
 
Merchants and Workmen 
 
 II 
 
 The Socialists believe that they have found 
 the true solution ; after a long and vain resistance 
 against machinery as the enemy of the worker, 
 they have ended by bowing down before it as 
 something inevitable, and to-day we find them 
 declaring that it is to be blessed for doing 
 away with so much ungrateful and unnecessary 
 human labour. There is no cause, it seems, to 
 be afraid of its results. To make sure of every 
 workman finding employment, all that is needed 
 is to reduce the Jength of the working day, 
 shortening it, according to the time-saving pro- 
 perties of the machine, from ten hours to eight 
 or six or even five. After a long period of - 
 sorrow and suffering mankind will arrive in this 
 way eventually at the millennium. 
 
 In the abstract, this reasoning is all right, 
 and it sounds so well that one would like to 
 believe it irrefutable. In practice, however, it 
 conflicts with the facts. The mistake the 
 Socialists fall into lies in their belief that the 
 reduction of the hours of labour is a matter that 
 each country is able to settle for itself; whereas 
 it would only be practicable if the country 
 making the experiment had no commercial and 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 industrial relations with the rest of the world, 
 had no exports, and could live upon its own 
 produce. This state of things exists only in 
 dreamland. 
 
 The commercial interests of the nations, far 
 from being isolated, are getting to be more and 
 more intermingled and interdependent; their 
 solidarity is becoming every day more manifest. 
 There is not a single nation at present which 
 is not obliged, in order to keep going and to 
 provide work for its labourers, to export a part 
 of its produce, and in order that it may hold 
 its own in the general competition, its net costs 
 must be kept down. Now, as labour represents 
 in most industries the most important item, it 
 is essential that there should not be too great 
 a discrepancy as regards its cost in different 
 countries. The question has become an inter- 
 national one of the highest importance, and can 
 only be settled by the various nations in council. 
 Only thus can all the interests involved be 
 reconciled, and our French Socialists, who at 
 their public meetings cry out so vehemently 
 for an eight-hours' day, should address their 
 appeals to workmen abroad, until they have 
 converted the foreigner to their views; they 
 could only achieve their ends in France at the 
 expense of our own unfortunate workmen. 
 
 70 
 
Merchants and Workmen 
 
 The reduction of the hours of labour, more- 
 over, cannot go beyond a certain point, and will 
 not suffice in itself to make up for the diminu- 
 tion in the need for manual labour caused by 
 the progress of machinery. This is, moreover, 
 another objection to any undue regulation of the 
 hours of labour. It is apt to be forgotten that, 
 side by side with the three million operatives in 
 our great manufactories, there are six millions 
 working in small establishments, or in their 
 own homes, on whom an eight-hours' day, still 
 less a five-hours' day, could not be imposed, 
 for the conditions of their labour have not 
 been affected by the advent of machinery; in 
 agriculture, there are another three millions 
 who will always be obliged to rise before dawn 
 and work until after sunset. 
 
 Among these three millions there will 
 assuredly be many who will find it hard to 
 reconcile themselves to a continuance of their 
 unremitting labour, if they hear that the 
 operatives in the city are only asked to work 
 a few hours a day. These will quit the plough, 
 and offer their services, cheap, at the doors of 
 the manufactories. Instead, therefore, of the 
 out-of-work problem being solved, the number 
 of our out-of-works will be greater than ever.* 
 
 * The American workers instead of fighting against the 
 71 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 III 
 
 Now the actual condition of things in respect 
 to unemployment is serious enough, without 
 our allowing it to get worse. When we turn 
 our eyes in this direction, we are startled and 
 shocked by what we see, for there is no more 
 infallible evidence as to the real condition of 
 the market than the statistics as to the number 
 of hands out of work. When trade is pros- 
 perous, the number is reduced to a minimum. 
 When trade is bad it increases. 
 
 It would seem as though the majority of the 
 great markets have been slack for some years 
 past. In the Board of Trade Report for 1903, 
 we get precise information as to the state of 
 things in England. "The labour market," it 
 tells us, " shows a falling-off compared with the 
 preceding three years. The average percentage 
 of trades-unionists out of work has been 5-1 in 
 1903. It was 4'4 in 1902, 3*8 in 1901, 2*4 in 1899. 
 The number of people in London in receipt of 
 
 machines, do all they can to bring them to perfection, knowing 
 that the more perfect the machine, the more important is the 
 man who attends to it, and the bigger his wage. Their industrial 
 ideal is that of a small body of skilled artisans, highly paid and 
 continually bettering their position by raising themselves 
 steadily on the ladder of professional knowledge. 
 
Merchants and Workmen 
 
 poor-law relief increased from 103,000 in 1900 
 to 1 14,000 in 1903. 
 
 In Germany the situation is not much more 
 brilliant, despite the apparent prosperity of her 
 trade. M. Vaillant, in his recent speech in the 
 Chamber of Deputies, cites an elaborate census 
 taken by the Berlin Workmen's Syndicate, 
 according to which the total number of men 
 entirely out of work in the Prussian capital 
 was 76,000. Including those partially out oi 
 work the number was 117,000. 
 
 Let us come now to France, and consult the 
 tables of statistics supplied by the Labour 
 Bureau, and complemented by M. Faguet's 
 report to the Labour Council. 
 
 These documents tell us that the average 
 number of out-of-works was 7 per cent, in 1896, 
 775 per cent, in 1901, and 9 per cent, in 1902. 
 But it must be noted that this is not the whole 
 truth. These numbers are supplied by the 
 better-organized syndicates which suffer least 
 from the evil of unemployment. 
 
 More importance is to be attached to another 
 document, infinitely more precise, and at the 
 same time more wide-embracing. In the census 
 returns of 1896 and 1901, workers out of em- 
 ployment were called upon to mention their 
 trade. From these returns it appears that in 
 
 73 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 1896 the number of unemployed was 4*6 per 
 cent, and that in 1901 it had risen to 6-5 per 
 cent. a very serious increase. 
 
 But these figures do not give any adequate 
 idea of the importance of the army of unem- 
 ployed, for alongside the worker who is con- 
 stantly in this condition, and who comes officially 
 under the category, must be ranged all those 
 innumerable nondescripts, tramps and loafers, 
 who live by odd jobs when they do any work 
 at all. These men adrift, objects of so much 
 danger to society, are reckoned at 400,000 in 
 France. They are a scourge to our country 
 districts, and complaints about them come 
 unceasingly to the Government as well to the 
 local authorities. 
 
 The numbers of our unemployed would be 
 much greater were it not for the immense de- 
 velopment of the new motor industry, still so 
 conspicuously French. The progress in this has 
 been one of the most curious economic pheno- 
 mena of recent years. The total production for 
 1903, in France, is estimated at 171 million francs, 
 of which about 50 millions were exported. If to 
 this we add the output of bicycles and motor- 
 cycles, which represent about 240 millions, we 
 get a grand total of 400 millions. The number 
 of workmen engaged directly or indirectly in 
 
 74 
 
Merchants and Workmen 
 
 that great industry is reckoned at 150,000, and 
 their wages at 300,000,000 francs. Imagine what 
 would be the state of things if this great army of 
 workers was unemployed ! 
 
 It is only right to bracket with the motor 
 industry all those electricity works whose 
 advance is also one of the most considerable 
 factors in our economic situation. But flourish- 
 ing though these industries be now, it would be 
 a great mistake to believe that they are going to 
 maintain for long their upward tendency. The 
 clientele for automobiles has been supplied for 
 some years to come, and it is evident that the 
 " boom " still in progress will shortly come to 
 an end. 
 
 IV 
 
 If we pass now from industry to commerce, 
 we have to note a still more swollen condition of 
 things. The exodus from the country which 
 was caused by the agricultural crisis, and which 
 we shall analyse in detail presently, has affected 
 commerce even more than it has industry. 
 Multitudes of small farmers, and even of small 
 land-owners, have flooded into the cities, and 
 having capitalized their small possessions have 
 invested the result in a small confectionery 
 
 75 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 business, or haberdashery establishment, or fruit- 
 shop, or more frequently still in a wine-shop. 
 The great increase in the numbers of cabarets 
 a thing to be so much regretted is due in large 
 degree to this.* 
 
 To form a clear idea of the really alarming 
 increase in the numbers of these small trades- 
 men, the figures should be compared with those 
 that show the corresponding diminution of the 
 agricultural population during the same period. 
 The Political Economy Annual for 1899 helps us 
 to do this. It tells us that while in 1872 the 
 agricultural classes represented 5270 in every 
 section of 10,000 of the entire population, in 1884 
 the proportion was only 5003, and in 1891 only 
 4733. While as regards commerce, the move- 
 ment was all the other way : the proportion in 
 
 * This side of the question of the rural exodus has been clearly 
 dealt with by M. Tisserand, Director of Agriculture, in his 
 masterly introduction to the decennial statistical record of 
 1882. In this he raises a cry of warning against the growth in 
 the numbers of middlemen as one of the dangers of the future. 
 " They have multiplied," he tells us, "from 1,537,000 in 1861, to 
 4,644,000 in 1 88 1 ; this, in spite of the loss of Alsace-Lorraine ; 
 an increase of more than six to the square kilometre ! In other 
 words, our agriculturists and industrials have to keep and even 
 to enrich 3,106,000 more middlemen now than then ! This is a 
 real evil, explaining at once the diminution in the profits of 
 agriculture and industry, and the increase in prices to the 
 consumer." 
 
 76 
 
Merchants and Workmen 
 
 1872 having been 843 per 10,000; in 1881, 1063; 
 and in 1891, 1076.* 
 
 We are not yet in possession of the complete 
 results of the census of 1901. However, we are 
 enabled to form an idea of them from the lumin- 
 ous preliminary report of M. Levasseur, Director 
 of the College de France, which has appeared 
 recently. He informs us that from 1896 to 1901, 
 the numbers of the urban population have been 
 increased by 895,000, this figure resulting not 
 from the excess of births over deaths which 
 comes to only 35,000 but being accounted for 
 principally by the enormous exodus from the 
 rural districts, which is recorded as exceeding 
 the figures of the preceding census by 670,000. 
 
 Possibly this figure may need to be corrected, 
 for if we turn to another section of the report, it 
 would appear that the rural exodus towards 
 certain large towns has ceased entirely in some 
 very important regions, such as those of the 
 north and east. This is a very notable improve- 
 ment, and a reassuring sign for the future. The 
 evil is already checked, and we are beginning to 
 ascend again the incline down which we have 
 been gliding. 
 
 Unfortunately, the commercial plethora still 
 
 * It should be borne in mind, however, that both tendencies 
 became noticeable long before 1872. 
 
 77 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 rages to its full extent, and its results are de- 
 plorable for every one, for consumers as well 
 as for agriculturists. 
 
 This multiplicity of petty traders in all our 
 towns, big and little, obliged to make their liveli- 
 hood by the sale of the products passing through 
 their hands, has had the effect of raising in an 
 extraordinary degree all the absolute necessaries 
 of life. We thus arrive at this absurd state of 
 things, that the more the producer strives to 
 lower his cost of production and his sale price, 
 the more the consumer has to pay. It is the 
 intermediary the petty tradesman who gets 
 the greater part of the profit. 
 
 What is most annoying about it is that the 
 tradesman himself, far from making his fortune, 
 merely stands still feebly, when he does not 
 come to smash. This fact may sound incredible, 
 yet it is easily explained; the large profits 
 realized formerly by the middlemen, when they 
 were limited in numbers, having led to the exodus 
 from the rural districts, the result has been 
 that a fierce and ruinous competition has come 
 about, between the great numbers that are 
 now dabbling in trade to-day. 
 
 We could instance districts in Paris in which 
 twenty years ago there were only two fruiterers, 
 and in which now there are six or eight the 
 
 78 
 
Merchants and Workmen 
 
 same could be said of grocers, bakers, butchers, 
 haberdashers, florists ; while as to wine-sellers, 
 their name is legion. All these small shops, 
 groaning under heavy expenses and forced to 
 make their profits out of a meagre clientele, are 
 only just managing to exist in spite of the high 
 prices they ask. 
 
 And, of course, they are in continual warfare 
 with the big stores which are coming into 
 existence everywhere, winning customers to 
 them by their low prices. The tendency is 
 irresistible, however much we may regret it. 
 
 The only way of fighting against it would be 
 for the small tradesmen to have recourse to co- 
 operation themselves, so as to get their goods at 
 the same low prices as the stores. Unfortunately 
 they are too much divided among themselves for 
 that, and co-operation is so little in our blood 
 that we prefer to perish rather than come to 
 terms with our competitors. 
 
 Meanwhile, certain it is that our petty 
 tradesmen suffer cruelly, and that some of them 
 fall out of the ranks every day. The statistics 
 as to failures tell us that. 
 
 79 
 
THE RETURN TO THE LAND 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE RETURN TO THE LAND 
 
 I 
 
 WHAT, then, is to become of our countless 
 workers unable to find work ? 
 
 There is but one opening, one resource for 
 them an opening wide enough for all, a resource 
 that will be inexhaustible for centuries yet to 
 come : the land. 
 
 For a moment the land has been thrown into 
 the shade by the manufacturing industries which 
 have fascinated all eyes, absorbed all minds, 
 given rise to all kinds of hopes. The humble 
 industry of agriculture fell into disdain. 
 
 It only began once more to raise its head 
 when science at last turned her eyes upon it, 
 and became aware that it was indeed the first of 
 all industries, not only because it was the most 
 necessary, but because it was the most elevated 
 scientifically, being in its essence the centre of 
 all those sciences that find in the soil their 
 principal field of action. 
 
 83 G 2 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 But if agriculture has been reinstated in its 
 place from the standpoint of science, this has yet 
 to be done for it in the domain of economics ; it 
 is suffering still from its former attitude of 
 humility, and there is much to be done before it 
 can attain the popularity of its younger sister, 
 industry. We shall be well employed, there- 
 fore, in doing all that we can to enlist public 
 interest in its present condition and future possi- 
 bilities. The necessity for finding new openings 
 for labour increases every day. The more 
 difficult the labour question becomes in the 
 world of manufacture, the more the movement 
 back to the land will gather force. It has begun 
 already, and things will advance more speedily 
 than is supposed. 
 
 II 
 
 We are met, of course, with the eternal 
 objection which, since the beginning of the 
 agricultural crisis, has always been thrown at 
 those who have sought to stem the current and 
 prevent the exodus from the fields. "You are 
 attempting the impossible," they cry; "the 
 movement you are trying to foster, however 
 desirable in itself, must meet with insuperable 
 
 84 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 difficulties. The return to the land is a mere 
 idyll, quite out of place in a matter-of-fact world 
 like ours. How are you to divert a current 
 which has been running with such strength for 
 more than half a century, and which has carried 
 along everything in its course ? Our agricultural 
 population has been decreasing steadily in 
 accordance with the Fates. 
 
 " If the country has been abandoned, this has 
 not been without reasons, and the reasons still 
 exist. The agricultural labourer has deserted 
 the soil because it imposed on him too much / 
 work and too many privations ; he has preferred 
 the factory because it gave him higher wages 
 with less tiring work and more regular hours. 
 Why should he return to the land which cannot 
 offer him an equivalent for what he now has ? 
 
 " The farmer and the landowner see things 
 in the same light. If they also find their way to 
 the towns, it is because they have found life in 
 the country too wearing and too unprofitable." 
 
 We should not dream of denying this 
 melancholy but manifest truth. It is incon- 
 testable that the complaints of the agricultural 
 world are only too well founded. It is easy to 
 understand why the rural classes have been 
 induced to move en masse into the towns. 
 
 The crisis, which raged more disastrously 
 
 85 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 with us than anywhere else, because it was pre- 
 ceded by an era of unexampled prosperity, was 
 bound to put our agriculturists into a state of 
 panic and to upset all existing conditions. 
 What industry is there which, seeing its 
 revenues decreased by one-half, while its ex- 
 penses remained stationary, could long resist 
 such a depression? None could have borne so 
 hard an ordeal, and but for the tenacity and 
 courage of our agriculturists and their inde- 
 structible love for the land, there would have 
 been an end altogether to agricultural industry 
 in France. 
 
 The rural exodus brought it within an inch of 
 destruction; fortunately those who remained in 
 the breach gave proof of an indomitable energy 
 which saved the situation. 
 
 And now, ts it possible to stem the current ? 
 Is there any new element in the situation at 
 present that will allow us to hope for a reaction ? 
 Undoubtedly there is. The present condition 
 of things economically is just the opposite to 
 what it was thirty years ago. The manufacturing 
 industry was then in the ascendant, agriculture 
 was going down. Now agriculture is rising 
 visibly, while the manufacturing industry has 
 come to a standstill. 
 
 The force of circumstances will, moreover, 
 86 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 bring back to agriculture those who can no 
 longer earn a livelihood in the factories. 
 Labourers who have been long out of work and 
 who have families to support will give up the 
 unequal struggle in the towns. For the few 
 who will drag on to the end, how many will giva 
 in and reconcile themselves to the inevitable ? 
 
 Ill 
 
 But since then a great event has come about 
 in the history of economics, doing away with 
 the chief cause of the crisis and completely 
 changing the face of the agricultural world. 
 The Government has at last hearkened to the 
 legitimate complaints of agriculture, crushed 
 under the weight of foreign competition, and has 
 put it on an equality with commerce by means 
 of a protective tariff. The tariff of 1892 was an 
 act of reparation and justice for it. 
 
 The state of our agriculture in all its branches 
 has been improved so much by this tariff, and 
 our production of cereals as well as of cattle has 
 been so much stimulated, that France has been 
 able, not merely to supply her own needs, but to 
 export a surplus as well.* 
 
 * Since 1884, the year preceding the first establishment of 
 protective duties, our agricultural trade has never ceased to 
 
 87 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 So far so good, but it would not do to insist 
 too much upon the point, and it is not to be 
 maintained that a protectionist tariff is all that is 
 required, and that agriculture has no other 
 enemy besides foreign competition. On the 
 contrary, agriculture has to cope with the same 
 difficulties as other industries, and its life is a 
 constant struggle. It is a great thing, however, 
 to have removed from its path an obstacle 
 against which all its efforts came to grief, and to 
 have thus made it mistress of its own destinies. 
 
 Let us now inquire into the numerous dis- 
 advantages it has to fight against, premising that 
 
 improve steadily. This has been very clearly set forth in a 
 work published by M. Henry Sagnier, of the Journal de 
 ? Agriculture. In his table of statistics, M. Sagnier leaves aside 
 such entirely foreign products as rice, coffee, tea, cocoa, and 
 pepper, as well as our trade with Algiers and our sugar trade, 
 which last he considers to have been too directly influenced by the 
 special legislation of the last few years. These items eliminated, 
 he shows that our imports of agricultural products amounted 
 in 1884 to 1,094,000,000 francs, and our exports to 652,000,000. 
 Thus there was an excess of imports of 441,000,000 that is to 
 say, France had to pay out this sum to the foreigner for her 
 food. From the beginning of 1900, the exports began to exceed 
 the imports. The excess of imports that year was 100,000,000, 
 in 1901 it was 152,000.000, in 1902 it reached 202,000,000. In 
 1903 it sank to 62,000,000, but in 1904 it rose again to 
 124,000,000. 
 
 In the twenty years, therefore, from 1884 to 1904, there has 
 been an advance of 565,000,000 in this figure representing the 
 progress made by our agriculture. 
 
 88 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 the general situation has undoubtedly improved 
 a good deal of recent years, and is improving 
 more and more every day. 
 
 It is to be noted, first of all, that if the 
 agricultural crisis proved disastrous to the old- 
 established proprietors, who saw their land 
 depreciated to half its previous value, it affected 
 very much less the new proprietors, who pur- 
 chased their land at low prices. When land is 
 cheap, its cultivator may hope for larger profits 
 for his labour. Land is consequently becoming 
 more in request, and recent statistics show in 
 some departements a certain increase in rents and 
 in the price of estates a sure sign of revival. 
 
 Despite this slight improvement, however, 
 there is no doubt that the position of an owner 
 who is forced to let his land is still far from 
 enviable, and that investments in real estate are 
 by no means profitable. Very different is the 
 position of the actual cultivator of the soil, 
 whether he be landowner or farmer. It may be 
 taken as beyond doubt that the agriculturist who 
 has received a serious professional training, and 
 who is at once progressive and methodical, is 
 certain to draw in a good revenue upon his 
 capital, whilst living in better style than many 
 well-to-do citizens. 
 
 There is still one great difficulty in the way 
 89 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 of good and profitable cultivation of the soil, it is 
 true, and that is the lack of cheap manual labour ; 
 the small farmer has to do without it, relying on 
 his own exertions and those of his family. 
 There is a good deal of truth in the saying, that 
 the fortune of a small farmer is in proportion to 
 the number of his children. The more children 
 he has the better. This need is of good augury 
 for :the future of France, hitherto so gravely 
 menaced by her low birth-rate. 
 
 The agricultural crisis, of course, has been by 
 no means the only cause of the exodus from the 
 country. There is another which has been more 
 decisive in its effects, namely, the change that has 
 come over the minds of our rural population, 
 especially of the young. They have quitted the 
 land not because of its failure to provide them 
 with the means of subsistence, but because of 
 the dreariness of existence in the country and 
 the apparent fascinations and charms of the 
 towns. 
 
 They have been drawn to the towns like 
 moths to the flame ; in their small cottages they 
 have sat dreaming of the splendid theatres, the 
 brightly-lit cafes, the brilliant fetes, all the 
 comforts and luxuries of city life, and then, 
 when they have come back to reality and looked 
 round their humble dwellings, at the grey naked 
 
 90 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 walls, at the smoking candle and their soiled 
 working clothes, they have been seized with a 
 great longing and have had room in their minds 
 for but one idea to get away at all cost, blind- 
 fold, not knowing whither. 
 
 Call it what you will, this moral phenomenon 
 is not to be ignored. This state of mind it is 
 that is luring away our country-folk, and that 
 accounts for the growth of our monstrous cities, 
 stretching out their arms in all directions and 
 absorbing the life of the regions all around. 
 
 The fascination has doubled in its intensity 
 since enforced military service has made all the 
 youth of the country pass through the garrisons 
 of the towns. It is there they acquire their 
 new tastes, habits which they can never again 
 renounce, and in which they can indulge in the 
 towns so in the towns they remain. If by 
 chance they do return to the plough, it is not for 
 long ; they soon weary of the monotonous life of 
 the fields, they find everything beneath them, 
 men and things, and they seize the first oppor- 
 tunity of getting away again. Their great 
 ambition is to become functionaries, postmen, 
 shop-walkers, or railway employes. 
 
 And it is not only the men who are thus 
 affected; the women have not escaped the 
 contagion of their example. They also have 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 been fascinated by the sight of the towns to 
 which they have formed the habit of going in 
 search of pleasure and distractions. They have 
 derived from them a taste for gaiety and fine 
 dresses and holiday-making. On their return, 
 their village seems to them dull, the farm dirty 
 and dismal, and their work repugnant ; the 
 labourers seem to them dull and loutish com- 
 pared with the seductive youths who have 
 lavished money on them in the towns. The 
 role of farmer's wife seems to them despicable, 
 and they will have nothing to do with any of 
 the young men of the village except those who 
 have become clerks or functionaries 
 
 This picture suggests something of the change 
 that has come over the life of most of our villages 
 during the last twenty years. We could instance 
 several cases of great agricultural families which 
 have given up splendid properties with aching 
 hearts, because their sons could not find women 
 to marry them and share their life in the country. 
 
 IV 
 
 Let us consider now, what methods are to 
 be adopted to further the movement back to 
 the land, and to attract those who still hesitate, 
 but who would be only too happy to turn their 
 
 92 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 steps in this direction if they could be shown 
 that it would mean happiness and prosperity 
 and well-being. 
 
 First of all, let us see what it is that brings 
 success to the manufacturing industry, under 
 what conditions a factory may be counted upon 
 earning good profits. 
 
 Statesmen, economists, business men alike 
 are all agreed that for an industry to attain its 
 maximum of prosperity it must produce inex- 
 pensively and in large quantities. Its working 
 and incidental expenses must be kept as low 
 as possible. An important item of the working 
 expenses is the raw material. When this is 
 purchased upon advantageous terms and when 
 the works are well equipped in every way, 
 the business may be expected to achieve good 
 results. 
 
 It is just .the same with agriculture. In 
 this case the seeds are the raw material; the 
 fertilizers represent the potent machinery. In 
 both respects agriculture during the last ten 
 years has been at least on a level with, if it 
 has not had the advantages of, manufacture. 
 
 Through the systematic and energetic efforts 
 of the agricultural syndicate, both seeds and 
 fertilizers of the best quality are now to be 
 obtained at half the former prices. The change 
 
 93 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 thus brought about is perhaps the most remark- 
 able of any during the last half century in the 
 world of agriculture; it has increased tenfold 
 the possibilities of agricultural development. 
 
 Farming on a small scale, always a prey to 
 hesitation and timorousness, has not yet entered 
 fully into the current, and there is still much 
 progress to be made here. It has begun to 
 move, however. The "model farms" which 
 have been becoming so numerous have served 
 to open men's eyes, and to show them what can 
 be done. 
 
 The small farmer is no longer able to plead 
 his poverty as an excuse for not making use of the 
 new methods, because he has only to put out 
 his hand to get possession of the small amount 
 of money required for the necessary purchases. 
 It will be advanced to him by the admirable 
 network of 1500 mutual loan banks, local or 
 provincial, which are now to be found in every 
 part of France. From these he can get capital 
 not merely for fertilizers but also for invest- 
 ments in live stock, which is a greater considera- 
 tion still. These advances are made at 3 or 4 
 per cent, interest at most. 
 
 Our organization in respect to agricultural 
 loans is one of the most perfect and most 
 complete in the world. Since the authorities 
 
 94 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 placed at the disposal of these regional banks, 
 without charging them interest, 40,000,000 francs 
 from the Banque de France, agriculture has 
 been unable to complain that it has been kept 
 back by want of capital. It has had no reason 
 to be jealous of manufacture, and has been able 
 to raise money at even lower rates. 
 
 It is a matter for regret that it has not availed 
 itself to the full of its opportunities, for some 
 proportion of the capital available for its use 
 is still idle. That seems a surprising phe- 
 nomenon, but it will surprise no one familiar 
 with the distrustful and over-prudent mind of 
 the French peasant. 
 
 He dislikes borrowing, and will borrow only 
 when he feels quite certain he can repay. He 
 is not like those chevaliers d'industrie who 
 abound in cities and who seek loans from every 
 one, regardless of risks of failure. Our agri- 
 culturists are of a very different stamp, and in 
 consequence our agricultural banking system 
 is the most firmly established in the world. 
 
 This is the reason why there was not an 
 immediate rush upon the well-filled coffers of 
 the regional banks. Our agriculturists have 
 still to grasp fully the importance of the institu- 
 tion of credit as an instrument of economic 
 progress, required by rich as well as poor. 
 
 95 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 Their education in this direction is making pro- 
 gress, and small farmers who at first fought 
 shy of the banks, now may be seen making their 
 way to them quite openly and no longer shame- 
 faced over the transaction. 
 
 But if agriculture is better placed than 
 manufacture in this respect, it is less fortunate 
 in regard to general expenses. Here a most 
 important item is taxation. It makes all the 
 difference as between the cost of an article in 
 one country and in another. 
 
 This is a matter of the utmost importance 
 to agriculture, and cannot be insisted upon too 
 much ; it is the key really to the agricultural 
 problem of to-day. The return to the land will 
 not be fully accomplished until the powers 
 that be shall have decided to enter courage- 
 ously upon the path ot reform in the matter 
 of agricultural taxation. Our code of procedure 
 requires to be almost completely reformed, and 
 our civil code also will have to be subjected to 
 drastic alterations if it is to be made really 
 efficacious. The axe must strike deep into this 
 giant tree which has been growing for a century 
 and stifling everything that lies within its shade. 
 
 96 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 The heavy charges that are such a weight 
 upon landed property have often been con- 
 demned. Agriculture is taxed more heavily 
 than any other industry it is the beast of 
 burden of the Treasury, as some one has called 
 it. It is not easy to calculate exactly how 
 much it has to bear, so multifarious are the 
 various rates and taxes by which it is affected. 
 This task has, however, been undertaken from 
 different sides with great precision. In par- 
 ticular, the calculation which was made some 
 time ago by M. de Lucay has of late been pro- 
 ceeded with by M. Fouquet in a communication 
 made by him to the National Society of Agri- 
 culture, published in the Journal d? Agriculture 
 for August 20 and 27, 1904. M. Fouquet begins 
 by showing the amount of direct taxation levied 
 upon the agriculturist ; the land tax, the door 
 and window taxes, the various charges and duties 
 upon personal property, the stamp duties upon 
 deeds, the tax upon mainmorte goods, etc. ; 
 the total for the whole of France amounts to 
 411,000,000 francs. 
 
 The 411 millions are borne by a revenue 
 which M. Fouquet estimates as 2,397,000,000; 
 but this revenue is already enormously weighted 
 with charges that reduce its figure very con- 
 siderably. The French mortgage debt, which 
 
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The Return to the Land 
 
 in 1894 amounted to 14,000,000,000 francs, places 
 on the land an annual charge of at least 
 476,000,000 francs, which reduces this revenue 
 to 1,921,000,000. The 411 millions of direct 
 taxation upon this figure represents no less a 
 proportion than 21 per cent. 
 
 But the direct taxation is not all. There must 
 be added all the innumerable transmission 
 duties, fees in connection with sales and lettings, 
 succession duties all of which amount to 700 
 millions more. M. Fouquet distributes this 
 amount equally over agricultural property, town 
 property, and personal estate a method of cal- 
 culation manifestly to the disadvantage of the 
 land, as the droits de mutation which it bears are 
 infinitely higher than those on personal estate. 
 This only strengthens the case, however, when 
 we find that the land's share amounts to 296 
 millions, which brings the total taxation up to 
 36 per cent. ; this huge proportion being known 
 to be below the real mark. 
 
 M. Klotz, who had the drawing up of the 
 agricultural budget of 1905, makes the case out 
 worse than M. Fouquet. He begins by estab- 
 lishing the fact that the Frenchman is more 
 heavily taxed than any one else in the world : 
 he pays 83 francs per head, 15 francs more, that 
 is, than the most heavily taxed foreigner. The 
 
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The Return to the Land 
 
 French agriculturist pays on an average 138 
 francs. 
 
 He then proceeds to analyse the charges of 
 all kinds that fall upon the land. To begin with, 
 he demonstrates that, partly to the State, partly 
 to the departement and commune, it pays 21*80 
 francs per cent, of its revenue ; he proceeds, how- 
 ever, like M. Fouquet, to deal with the mortgage 
 debts, which he reckons at 15,000,000,000 francs, 
 involving 600,000,000 as interest, 400,000,000 of 
 which falls upon land not built upon, equivalent 
 to another 20 per cent, on the agricultural 
 revenue. 
 
 M. Klotz, having added another i per cent, 
 for the expense of records required by the 
 public officials, comes to the conclusion that, 
 taken all together, the charges which the land 
 must meet before producing a penny of profit 
 represents 41 per cent, on the revenue. 
 
 In the second part of his study, M. Klotz, in 
 order to bring out still more completely the real 
 situation of agriculture, adds to these particulars 
 of the charges on the land a record of the charges 
 upon the personal estate. He finds that, ac- 
 cording to statistics published by the Registra- 
 tion Department for 1903, personal estate paid 
 265,000,000 for transmission duties, stamp duties, 
 revenue taxes, taxes upon stock exchange 
 
 99 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 operation, succession duties which upon a 
 revenue of 3,436,000,000 comes to 7*59 francs in 
 the loo. Therefore the land is taxed relatively 
 more than five times as much as personal estate. 
 It is not surprising, therefore, if capital be de- 
 flected from agriculture into personal estate 
 securities, and that landed property in France 
 has decreased 20 per cent, in value, while per- 
 sonal estate has increased 50 per cent. 
 
 Of all the burdens upon agriculture, the 
 most unjustifiable economically, and the most 
 crushing, though not actually the heaviest, is 
 the transmission tax with its train of formalities 
 of all kinds; this is the principal cause of 
 discouragement to landowners, and especially 
 to male landowners. It is on this side that 
 the first fiscal reforms should be undertaken in 
 order to rid agriculture of the bonds by which 
 it is being strangled, and to give it the freedom 
 now enjoyed by personal estate. 
 
 We should not go so far as to advocate 
 the placing of land upon actually the same 
 basis as personal estate. That would be ac- 
 companied by drawbacks, and would lead to 
 undesirable speculations. We do think, how- 
 ever, that it could be set free from its present 
 shackles and made more easily transferable. 
 Certain governments have already moved in 
 
 100 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 this direction, and it would be easy to pro- 
 ceed further. 
 
 In the mean time would it not be possible 
 to benefit the land by extending to it the 
 simplified procedure in regard to purge and 
 realisation du gage, which is the special privi- 
 lege of the Credit Foncier? And could not 
 the droit de mutation be at once altered and 
 diminished? Is it not regrettable that this tax, 
 which throughout the rest of Europe varies 
 from i to 3 per cent, should reach in France 
 6*88 per cent, and with the stamp duty 10 per 
 cent. ? What is there to prevent the droit de 
 mutation from being transformed into a single 
 taxe d'abonnement y as has been done in the 
 case of mainmorte property and in that of 
 personal estate? 
 
 This simple transformation would mean a 
 great step forward. The payment of a small 
 annual tax would be infinitely less onerous 
 than the immediate disbursement of a large 
 sum representing several years' income; if 
 spread over a great number of years this tax 
 would fall in due proportion upon all the 
 holders of the property, and this would greatly 
 facilitate its liquidation. The purchaser not 
 being forced to pay down a very large amount 
 of money on the day he enters into possession, 
 
 101 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 the passing of the land from one hand into 
 another becomes much easier. 
 
 Unfortunately, our legislators do not at pre- 
 sent seem disposed to adopt these measures. 
 On the contrary, the bills now being brought 
 forward tend rather to augment the burden 
 land has already to bear. It would be easy 
 to demonstrate, for instance, that the impot 
 global upon income, if established, would fall 
 with all its weight upon real estate, which 
 alone cannot elude the eyes of the Treasury; 
 it will be another premium upon personal 
 estate, which is so easily disguised; the rural 
 exodus, instead of slackening, will gather 
 strength. 
 
 If the intention were to disgust and dis- 
 hearten our agriculturists, no more ingenious 
 method could be devised. They are sought 
 out in the midst of their work, already so full 
 of anxieties, and cross-examined in detail as 
 to everything they are doing, what they are 
 growing, how much they are earning, and even 
 what they eat. Their sensibilities are hurt in 
 every way. 
 
 Every one is aware how difficult it is to get 
 regular accounts out of farmers, even the most 
 intelligent of them. This is not because of 
 laziness or stupidity on their part, it is the 
 
 102 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 outcome of distrust pure and simple to un- 
 willingness to confide to any one the secret of 
 their affairs. It is his nature to work from 
 hand to mouth, each day for itself, and he is 
 disinclined to calculate his expenses and profits 
 in advance. Experience, perhaps, has taught 
 that his expectations are too often all upset by 
 the caprices of the weather, and he feels, there- 
 fore, that figuring out things ahead is waste of 
 time. He prefers his woollen stocking to the 
 ledger. When it is full, he has had a good year ; 
 when empty, a bad one. That is all he knows, 
 and that is enough. 
 
 This is the man we are to call upon every 
 year to furnish a debtor and creditor account 
 of his exact income, such as we require from a 
 merchant or a manufacturer. This account in 
 itself is very difficult to make out. Agricultural 
 operations are not those of a manufactory or 
 of merchandise, which are concluded almost 
 always by certain specified dates; they may 
 extend over long, indefinite periods. The 
 yearly budgets cannot be regularly closed 
 because the good and bad years overlap and 
 intermingle and cannot be divided up. The 
 real income of a farmer at the end of any 
 single year is almost impossible to calculate. 
 To try to reckon it up is to take for granted 
 
 103 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 that certain operations will work out in a 
 certain way, whereas the results may be quite 
 different. 
 
 The Treasury will find it a very difficult 
 matter to cope with our farmers over these 
 accounts. We pity the Government charged 
 with such a duty. 
 
 It is true that the supporters of this task 
 have no fears. They hope that our country- 
 folk, always pliable and obedient, will not 
 have the courage to resist our all-powerful 
 tax-collectors, and will bow their heads to the 
 inevitable. 
 
 Possibly it will be so, but in that case our 
 victims will be all the more exasperated, and 
 we are much afraid that their ill-humour will 
 be turned not only against the gentry who 
 have played them this turn, but also against 
 the soil itself, the source of so many troubles 
 and worries, and that they will abandon it in 
 their eagerness to get out of the clutches of 
 the Treasury. 
 
 If we want to form an idea of the mental 
 attitude of these countryfolk towards State 
 officials, we have only to glance at what is 
 happening now in the case of the distillers 
 of our vin du pays. Nothing could be more 
 suggestive and significant. The law had but 
 
 104 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 to authorize an administrative visit to their 
 vaults to put them into a veritable state of 
 insurrection; and it is noteworthy that it is 
 not the smugglers who have been getting 
 most excited and indignant, it is the law- 
 abiding ones. Their anger has reached such a 
 point that a large number of them have given 
 up distilling and allowed their fruit to rot 
 rather than have anything to say to the 
 Regie. 
 
 However, the inventors of this income-tax, 
 while aware of this danger, hope to avert it by 
 sparing the bulk of small taxpayers exempting 
 in the small communes all the farmers whose 
 income is less than 750 francs, and levying only 
 a very light tax upon all the lower grades of tax- 
 payers. They hope thus to get their support in 
 the struggle against the minority who are being 
 mulcted. 
 
 The hope is vain. The majority will soon 
 have its eyes opened, and will perceive what to 
 expect themselves. They will realize that, once 
 it is put into action, the law will end by includ- 
 ing every one ; when a financial snare of this 
 kind is set, every one gets caught in it. When 
 the Treasury discovers that the tax is not 
 bringing in enough money, because the larger 
 landowners are dividing up their estates to 
 
 105 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 evade it (as is inevitable), it will have to fall 
 back upon the lower categories and ask more 
 from them. It will have to give its screw 
 another twist. 
 
 This income-tax must inevitably have the 
 effect of increasing the depreciation of landed 
 property. Who will care to invest his money 
 in land with this sword of Damocles hanging 
 over his head? Every one will want to sell 
 and no one will want to buy. Personal estate 
 and foreign securities alone will benefit. 
 
 VI 
 
 The weakest point in connection with our 
 agricultural system, putting it at a great dis- 
 advantage compared with our manufacturers, 
 is the backwardness of its methods of sale ; 
 efficient selling is essential to any industry 
 that is to be prosperous; its profits depend 
 on this. Now most of our farmers continue 
 to sell in the primitive old fashion, without 
 ever asking themselves whether this could 
 not be improved upon, and without ever 
 realizing its ruinous effects. Some of them 
 take their goods to the nearest market and, 
 after much loss of time, find they must sell 
 their stuff at any price, no matter how low, 
 
 1 06 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 so as not to have to take it home again ; others 
 hand over their harvest to middlemen, who 
 speculate in it, and get all the profit to be had 
 out of the transaction. The total loss which 
 results to them from their lack of organization 
 can be easily enough calculated. We have but 
 to compare the price paid by the consumer 
 for the chief agricultural products with the 
 price secured by the farmer, and multiply the 
 difference by the total amount sold. The result 
 is simply stupefying. 
 
 Let us take the case of butcher's meat, for 
 instance. We all know what enormous profits 
 are made by the butchers in the big cities, 
 though it is difficult to estimate them exactly 
 on account of the number of factors known 
 only to the butcher himself that can come into 
 the sum. These profits are only to be learnt 
 by becoming one's own butcher, which is 
 practicable only for big concerns. 
 
 One of the first experiments of the kind 
 was made in 1892 by the Havre Almshouses. 
 A careful analysis of it may be found in M. 
 Felix Alcan's book "Les Questions Agricoles." 
 He finds from his examination of the detailed 
 and perfectly kept accounts, that for animals 
 of very good quality the cost price was as 
 follows : 
 
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The Return to the Land 
 
 For beef ...... 1-44 francs the kilo. 
 
 veal ...... 1-66 
 
 mutton ...... 1*87 
 
 ...... 1-53 
 
 The average price comes out, therefore, at 
 i "40 francs. 
 
 M. Zolla proceeds to note the price of the 
 tongues, livers, etc., and finds that it brings the 
 average up to 1*47. 
 
 The next step was to find out the prices 
 charged by the Havre butchers. To put his 
 comparison beyond dispute, M. Zolla decided 
 to take their lowest prices, and chose those 
 which were obtained by contract by the Havre 
 Lyc<e. The price for meat of all kinds was 
 i '60 francs per kilo, that is, 19 centimes higher 
 than at the Almshouse. Supposing the difference 
 had been only ten centimes, the Almshouse, 
 which consumed 134,000 kilograms in the year, 
 would have made an economy of 13,000 francs. 
 This is an indication of the additional profits 
 agriculture ought to be enjoying. 
 
 M. Zolla adds that the butcher who supplied 
 the Lycee made a profit of at least 15 centimes 
 per kilo. 
 
 The price of bread is more regular than that 
 of meat, and bakers certainly do not make such 
 large profits as butchers. The difference 
 
 108 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 between the price of bread and the price of 
 corn varies in a remarkable degree. The 
 statistics published by the Ministry of Agri- 
 culture show that the difference is at its greatest 
 when corn is cheapest. 
 
 In regard to vegetables, the difference is 
 more striking still. There is not a housekeeper 
 who does not groan when she compares her 
 accounts of to-day with those of yesterday. 
 
 The cause of the evil is well known it is 
 the great number of middlemen between the 
 agriculturist and the purchaser. Every one of 
 them has to make his profit out of the merchan- 
 dise, which goes up in price according to the 
 number of hands it passes through. The farmer 
 is powerless in the hands of the middleman. 
 He has not time to look about for purchasers 
 himself, and he cannot hold back his goods, 
 either because they would thus lose in value 
 or go bad altogether, or else because he is in 
 actual need of money and must accept whatever 
 the middleman offers him. 
 
 We should not think of contending that all 
 these middlemen are useless and should be done 
 away with. On the contrary, we would not 
 have the farmer devote himself to the selling 
 of his goods, which takes up too much time 
 and energy and interferes with his work. We 
 
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The Return to the Land 
 
 would have him leave this task to others. All 
 we contend is that there are too many middle- 
 men four or five where there should only be 
 one; and that these middlemen are too inde- 
 pendent of the farmer, and work too entirely for 
 their own hands. 
 
 If these points be conceded, the moral to 
 be drawn is clear enough, and the remedy to the 
 present state of things is easily found. 
 
 VII 
 
 It is to be found in co-operation. Co-opera- 
 tive societies will prove themselves in time the 
 great means of emancipating agriculture; they 
 will make it possible to get the maximum of 
 profit out of its products by bringing buyers 
 and sellers into touch and eliminating the 
 parasitic middleman. 
 
 These co-operative societies can take any 
 shape or form ; their development has been so 
 great during the last few years, and they are 
 now so many and various, that it is not easy to 
 pick out any one example.* 
 
 * There are 18,000 rural associations already in existence, 
 not counting the Socittts d* Agriculture and the " Committees." 
 Of these 1500 are co-operative fruiterers or cheese- vendors, 400 
 co-operative bakeries, 150 co-operative dairies. 
 
 1 10 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 The agricultural world has gone into the 
 co-operative movement thoroughly, perhaps 
 more so than any other industry. It will not 
 stop short, and it will achieve its purpose, 
 which is the bringing of order and harmony into 
 the working of economic laws. The public 
 authorities understand this now, and do all they 
 can to foster the movement. Unfortunately, the 
 associations for selling are still the fewest. 
 
 The wine producers of the Midi were the 
 first to take this new road, establishing in Paris 
 and the other large towns depots of which the 
 only expense is that of an office under the 
 charge of an agent to take orders. The 
 expenses of advertisement are reduced to the 
 sending out of cards and notices. In addition 
 they have instituted depots with wine-shops 
 attached. These involve considerable outlay, 
 but even the cost of one of these, divided among 
 all the members of the association represented 
 by it, is trifling compared with the enhanced 
 profits secured by the selling of the wine direct 
 and at the prices fixed by themselves. 
 
 The example of these wine-growers was soon 
 followed, and every branch of agriculture is now 
 beginning to manage in this way for itself 
 without the interposition of the middleman.* 
 
 11 The method of procedure adopted in the establishment of 
 III 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 We shall not attempt to enumerate the co- 
 operative associations already formed in France 
 
 these associations is very clearly set forth by M. Kergall in an 
 article in La Democratic Rurale ; 
 
 " Landowners living in the same neighbourhood, growing the 
 same produce, and overcoming the old feelingsiof jealousy and 
 distrust which have done so much harm to our agriculture, 
 have grouped themselves into associations numbering 10, 15, 20, 
 up to 60 or 80 members, for the purpose of despatching their 
 joint merchandise en bloc during the season to a trustworthy 
 firm of commission agents, whose business it is to dispose of it 
 to the best advantage. 
 
 " They have realized that in this way they economize in all 
 the expenses involved. 
 
 " i. They benefit by the reduced tariffs accorded to goods 
 amounting in weight to 50 or 60 kilograms, smaller consign- 
 ments paying the tax in full. 
 
 " 2. They do not suffer from the custom of the railways in 
 reckoning parcels which weigh only 22 or 25 kilograms at the 
 round figure of 30. 
 
 " 3. They are able to save also in the cartage expenses. 
 
 " 4. They avoid the stamp duties and registering fees upon 
 each separate parcel. 
 
 " 5. They economize in the matter of the transmission of 
 bills, consignments, etc., by having them all dealt with together. 
 
 " To secure this result they despatch one way-bill with the 
 whole consignment, specifying the various packages, each of 
 which has attached to it a ticket with the sender's name, or else 
 merely his number each member of the group having his 
 distinguishing number. At the same time they send the agent 
 by post a memorandum, giving the name or number of each 
 member, with particulars as to the nature and weight of his 
 package, so that a separate bill of sale may be made out for 
 each. As a precautionary measure, a duplicate of it is sent in 
 one of the packages, recognizable, lest this should go astray or 
 be delayed in the post, by a known mark." 
 
 112 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 during the last twenty years, but there are a 
 few to which it may be worth our while to 
 devote our attention. The most important are 
 those for the production and sale of butter, of 
 eggs and cheese, and of vegetables and fruit. 
 
 The co-operative butter-factories offer advan- 
 tages to the producer that cannot fail to be 
 recognized. A farmer making his own butter 
 gets 3 kilograms out of 100 litres of milk 33 
 litres to the kilo. Now, the co-operative 
 establishments, thanks to their perfected 
 utensils, get a kilo out of 26 or 28 litres. And 
 that is not all. In addition to the economy in 
 the raw material, there is also an economy of 
 time which is not to be despised; it is only 
 natural that much less time should be required 
 to deal with 1000 litres of milk in a single 
 establishment than in eighty or one hundred 
 different ones. 
 
 Needless to add that as the butter is made 
 every day from fresh cream, instead of two or 
 three times a week from cream that is turning 
 sour and with imperfect utensils, the co-opera- 
 tive butter is always superior and of prime 
 quality. 
 
 And it is not merely in the production of 
 the butter that these co-operative associations 
 benefit the farmer, but also in the selling of it. 
 
 113 I 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 They find him purchasers both at home and on 
 distant markets abroad.* 
 
 The Charente and Poitou district contains 
 ninety-eight of these establishments, represent- 
 ing nearly 50,000 farmers with a total of about 
 130,000 cows. The average production of this 
 important group comes to 200,000,000 litres of 
 milk, equivalent to 10,000,000 kilos of butter, 
 worth from 27 to 30 million francs ; it is from 
 this group that Paris receives half its immense 
 supply. 
 
 The production of cheese upon this co- 
 operative basis presents the same advantages. 
 The French associations for producing cheese 
 that came first into existence are in the Jura and 
 Franche-Comte, where they practically have the 
 monopoly of Gruyere. These cheese-manu- 
 facturing establishments offer more or less the 
 same rate of profit as those for butter. Milk 
 that brings in the individual farmer from 6 
 to 8 centimes, produces from n to 12 when 
 
 * It appears from an inquiry made by the Minister for 
 Agriculture in 1902, that there are in France 2000 establish- 
 ments producing fresh butter for sale ; 66 1 of these are 
 organized on a co-operative basis, 1339 belonging to in- 
 dividuals. Their total production is estimated at 62,000,000 
 francs. As the annual production of butter for the whole of 
 France is estimated at 300,000,000 francs, it is evident that 
 there is still a wide field for enterprise. 
 
 114 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 in the hands of these fruitieres, as they are 
 designated. 
 
 . But the development of the fruittires is far 
 behind that of the butter-factories ; their number 
 remains stationary somewhere about 2500, and 
 they have not extended much beyond the <//- 
 partements in which they originated. This is 
 attributed to lack of enough capital to enable 
 them to pay cash down to the farmers, who are 
 obliged to wait for their money until the 
 fruitteres have effected their sales. This places 
 them at a disadvantage compared with the 
 private cheese-producers, who pay at least once 
 a month for the milk they use. 
 
 Among the great co-operative associations 
 which, by undertaking the sale of produce, have 
 entirely done away with the greedy middleman, 
 may be mentioned that of the gardeners of 
 Nantes, which operates so largely upon the 
 English market. The syndicate of the gardeners 
 of Hyeres despatches large consignments of 
 vegetables and flowers to Paris and all the large 
 towns. That of Lauris disposes of asparagus, 
 that of Quincy-Segy deals with plums and black 
 currants. That of Mentone sells lemons at the 
 rate of more than two millions a year ; thanks to 
 it, the best lemons, which used to sell at 6 francs 
 per 1000, now fetch 11 francs. 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 The co-operative societies of the agri- 
 culturists of the Puy-de-Dome, and those of Lot- 
 et-Garonne, of the Alpes and of Provence, which 
 extend over seven departments and comprise 
 1 88 syndicates, and the society of the " Syndicats 
 du Sud-Est" should also be mentioned. 
 
 The syndicate of the growers of early 
 vegetables, founded in 1901, has established a 
 co-operative association for the purpose of 
 sharing the use of a stall in the Halles. Its 
 representative is to be seen at pavilion No. 6, 
 ready to accept all orders for consignment 
 abroad. That is a new and ingenious idea 
 which is calculated to have developments. 
 
 The central syndicate of the Agriculturists 
 of France has secured special facilities in the 
 Villette market for disposing of cattle and of 
 farm-produce of all kinds. Finally, the Agri- 
 cultural Union of France, a company with a 
 capital of 1,100,000 francs, undertakes the sale 
 on commission of the produce consigned to it 
 by the syndicates or even by individual farmers, 
 to whom it allots a 20 per cent, royalty on its 
 profits. But what the co-operative associations 
 do for agriculture in the matter of sales here at 
 home, is nothing compared with what they might 
 do for it on the foreign markets. The world- 
 wide competition has grown to such a degree 
 
 116 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 that the struggle can no longer be carried on by 
 individuals. We must call upon our associa- 
 tions to do battle for us against all the powerful 
 associations arrayed against us. It is because, 
 in spite of warnings, we have not yet realized 
 the importance of doing this that we have been 
 losing ground. 
 
 We are being distanced by a number of great 
 countries, notably by the United States, Canada, 
 and Italy, and even by quite small countries like 
 Denmark, Sweden, and Belgium, all of whom are 
 doing their best to supplant us everywhere with 
 the help of their agricultural associations. 
 
 To the list of these rivals we must add 
 Australia, New Zealand, and the Argentine 
 Republic, which exports butter from the fertile 
 plains of Rio Plata in highly perfected cold 
 storage compartments on swift mail-boats. Not 
 long ago, the steamship Nile unloaded 7500 
 casks of fresh and salt butter, which was 
 sampled and found excellent. 
 
 On the English market, where twenty years 
 ago we came first in regard to butter, we now 
 come only third. Our exports had fallen in 1900 
 to 44,000,000 francs, while those of Denmark had 
 risen to 22,600,000. Our exports of eggs have 
 gone down 50 per cent. ; from the first place we 
 have sunk to the fifth, our exports amounting now 
 
 117 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 to 12,000,000 francs instead of 167,000,000. Our 
 exports of cheese come to barely 1,500,000, 
 though England alone buys 178,000,000 francs' 
 worth. We export only 2,610,000 francs' worth 
 of meat to England; Denmark, with its 26 co- 
 operative slaughter-houses, exports 100,000,000. 
 
 Meanwhile, on the German market we have 
 allowed our place to be taken by Italy, .which 
 sends it 70,000 tons of fruit and vegetables, and 
 by other countries; out of 510,500 tons of fruit 
 and vegetables imported by Germany from 
 abroad, we supply only 43,000. 
 
 The principal reason of our decline is the 
 lack of co-operation among our producers, 
 their persistent holding aloof from each other ; 
 if only they had taken note of what was going 
 on abroad, it would have been easy for them 
 to see in what lay the strength of their com- 
 petitors and their own weakness. 
 
 They had but to look at Denmark, which 
 has become one of our most redoubtable rivals. 
 Is it not surprising that this small country, 
 with only 2,000,000 inhabitants, and with a 
 climate infinitely less favourable than our own, 
 should be selling to England 400,000,000 francs' 
 worth of agricultural produce ? That is more 
 than we do. 
 
 For the sale of eggs alone, Denmark has 
 118 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 465 co-operative associations, which collect them 
 from all the individual members, and then 
 consign them to the central body, which re- 
 presents the entire country. It is by reason 
 of the vigilant control exercised over the quality 
 of its merchandise, by its powerful organization, 
 that Denmark has made such strides ahead. 
 Its exports of eggs have risen from 134,000,000 
 in 1894 to 464,000,000 in 1903. 
 
 For the sale of butter Denmark has five 
 large associations, one of which includes eighty- 
 four dairies. All these stamp the butter exported 
 with their own trade-mark, which enhances its 
 value. 
 
 It would be unjust to pretend that France 
 has taken no steps at all towards establishing 
 similar institutions. Something has been done, 
 but not enough. Our associations are still too 
 few and too weak. We need a central body 
 which should be in touch with the whole field 
 of our agricultural exports, and which could 
 be looked to for guidance and stimulus. As 
 long as we lack this, we shall continue to be 
 distanced by our rivals. 
 
 But in order that our associations may 
 engage in the contest successfully, we must 
 arm them with the weapons which, at present, 
 are being used effectively against us by our 
 
 119 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 competitors. Of these the most important is 
 economy of transport. 
 
 The need of quick and cheap methods of 
 transport for agricultural produce is universally 
 recognized. Goods are transported in Germany 
 at rates 25 per cent, lower than with us, and 
 far more quickly. It is absolutely necessary 
 that our railway companies should decide to 
 introduce improved methods of transport they 
 will find themselves repaid by the development 
 of their traffic ; * and it is equally essential 
 that our agriculturists, on their side, should 
 arouse themselves from their inertia, and form 
 themselves into vast and powerful associations, 
 capable of treating with the companies and 
 offering them appreciable advantages. In this 
 way it will be possible to bring about an en- 
 tirely different state of things. 
 
 VIII 
 
 Much is being done, as we have seen, to 
 educate our rural classes, scientifically and 
 
 * It must be admitted that the railway companies have not 
 shown themselves entirely indifferent to the question. Those of 
 the " Nord," of the " Quest," and of the " Ceinture " have just 
 followed the example already set them by the Paris-Lyons 
 and the Orleans by drawing up a new special tariff for the 
 accelerated transport of vegetables, which will give great satisfac- 
 tion to our farmers in Normandy and Brittany. 
 
 I2O 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 technically, but we feel that this is not all 
 that we must strive also to instil in them a 
 love for their labour, and to reinforce their 
 numbers with new recruits. For this purpose, 
 a different order of education is required, the 
 chief end of which should be to bring out the 
 beauties of nature, and the advantages of life 
 in the fields. 
 
 This is a task for our school teachers who 
 have the modelling of a child's mind. They 
 need not be poets a love of nature may be 
 instilled into the child without any recourse to 
 lyricism. The simplest lesson in natural history 
 or chemistry serves as well as a poem ; the 
 study of the great phenomena of nature, and 
 the marvellous manifestations of animal and 
 vegetable life, raises the mind, and attaches it 
 to the soil by widening its horizon. 
 
 Let us listen to what M. Louis Passy, 
 permanent secretary of the National Society of 
 Agriculture, had to say upon this subject in 
 his recently published work, " Agriculture 
 devant le Science " 
 
 "Everything tends to convince one that 
 agriculture will never be a real science. Just 
 as the art of medicine deals with the human 
 body with the help of all the natural sciences, 
 so agriculture deals with the body of the earth, 
 
 121 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 but neither agriculture nor medicine can ever 
 rely absolutely upon the outcome of its efforts. 
 Certain rules of treatment carefully applied are 
 calculated to produce certain results, but these 
 results are not inevitable, like the results of 
 chemistry or arithmetic. 
 
 " When man worked in haphazard fashion, 
 agriculture was a trade; but it has become an 
 art since man began to bring his mind to bear 
 upon the work, and to learn how to exploit it 
 by the best methods to the best advantage. 
 Nature is an untiring instrument of production, 
 working away by itself, following out mysterious 
 laws of transformation ; but she can do nothing 
 by herself; she can but give herself generously 
 to him who, by virtue of his intellect, is lord 
 of all. Man is lord of all, but he also is power- 
 less in himself and by himself, with Nature." 
 
 There is another branch of education which 
 would contribute greatly to the improvement 
 of the agricultural career, and which, un- 
 fortunately, is too much neglected in France, 
 and that is the special training of girls when 
 they have just left school. If a young girl is 
 left to herself at this age, she is apt to be 
 repelled by the rude labours of the farm, and 
 to turn her eyes longingly towards the distrac- 
 tions of the town. This is the psychological 
 
 122 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 moment, therefore, to give her a taste for farm 
 life by ennobling it in her eyes. 
 
 Schools of housekeeping have been estab- 
 lished for this purpose in various countries, 
 and in them the young girl is taught how a 
 farm is managed. She is made to realize the 
 importance and beauty of the existence of a 
 farmer's wife, and all the interest that attaches 
 to it, and in this way she is saved from the lot 
 of the wives and daughters of clerks and 
 functionaries. These schools have the further 
 effect of keeping in the country large numbers 
 of young men who, but for them, would be 
 unable to find wives, and who would have 
 drifted to the towns. Of all the methods of 
 fostering the return to the land, this is one of 
 the most effective. 
 
 In most foreign countries, the importance 
 of this form of education is understood, and 
 schools of the kind now described are now 
 being conducted on the most practical lines. 
 In Germany they are to be found in almost 
 every province; and in Austria there are a 
 number. In England there are horticultural 
 schools and model dairy-farms. There is, 
 .moreover, an international league for the 
 purpose of stimulating the employment of 
 women in every branch of agriculture. 
 
 123 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 An agricultural institute has been recently 
 founded in New York, in which the pupils are 
 given a similar practical education, though "not 
 to the exclusion of the social arts calculated to 
 make of them attractive companions " a formula 
 worth our remembering, and quite to the liking 
 of our young Frenchwomen. 
 
 In Canada, a school of agriculture for girls 
 was instituted in 1892. The pupils are taught 
 how to manage a poultry-yard, how to make 
 butter and cheese, and how to keep farm 
 accounts. The model farm upon which this 
 school is installed covers more than eighty acres, 
 and is worked entirely by women. 
 
 But of all the countries that have taken up 
 woman's education in this direction, none has 
 gone so far or done so much as Belgium. 
 
 The Belgian Government began by instituting 
 courses of fifteen lessons in domestic economy 
 in all the agricultural centres, for the benefit of 
 women and girls. To these it added later a 
 travelling dairy-school, which is located, now 
 here, now there, for three months at a time, and 
 which brings instruction within the reach of 
 girls who are unable to attend the ordinary 
 house-keeping classes. The regular house- 
 keeping schools, which are of more recent 
 origin in Belgium, are organized in three 
 
 124 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 sections. In the superior section, the course is 
 very thorough-going, and includes careful in- 
 struction in the principles of hygiene and the 
 study of bacterfology. The first of these insti- 
 tutions, at Virton, was founded in 1891, and it 
 proved so great a success that nine others have 
 since been established. At the end of 1898 there 
 were in all 245 schools frequented by 9000 
 pupils. All these schools are attached to 
 special farms, which the State merely subsidizes. 
 
 M. le Baron de la Bouillerie, in his report 
 upon the Agricultural Education Exhibits shown 
 at the Exhibition of 1900, explains that what 
 impelled Belgium to activity, was the knowledge 
 that the lack of women capable of managing 
 farms was a prime cause of the rural exodus. 
 
 When shall we follow Belgium's example, 
 instead of contenting ourselves with the very 
 meagre education now provided by us ? * When 
 shall we make up our mind to provide real 
 
 * We have only three schools of the kind in the whole ot 
 France. Two of these the one at Coetlogon near Rennes, and 
 that of Kerliver (Finisterre) are practical schools of dairy- 
 farming. That at Coetlogon, which was founded twenty years 
 ago, is a model of its kind ; it was here that the Belgian 
 women got their training, who were afterwards the first mana- 
 geresses of the Belgian dairy-schools. The one other agricultural 
 school in France is that at Monastier (Haute- Loire), estab- 
 lished in 1902, at which there are only fifteen pupils. 
 
 125 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 agricultural training for women, evoking in 
 them appreciation of the life of the country, and 
 making them realize the dignity and utility of 
 farm-work ? Of all the reforms yet to be under- 
 taken in the interests of agriculture, there is 
 none more important or more pressing than 
 this. 
 
 126 
 
STATE AID 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 STATE AID 
 
 I 
 
 HAVING examined into the direct methods 
 to be employed for raising the status of 
 agriculture and making it more lucrative, let us 
 glance now at those indirect means, as they 
 may be styled, which are able to exert so potent 
 an influence in the same direction. 
 
 There is, to begin with, one great source 
 of discouragement to the agriculturist which 
 might be provided against, and which does not 
 trouble the prudent man of business the fact, 
 namely, that he is at the mercy of the weather 
 and also of cattle-disease. This sword of Damo- 
 cles spoils his existence, and often is the cause 
 of his forsaking the land, and taking to some 
 more secure occupation, in which, at least, he 
 need have no anxiety as to the morrow. This 
 is in part the explanation of the notable ten- 
 dency on the part of young farmers to seek 
 employment, no matter how obscure, in our 
 
 129 K 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 public offices. The son has heard the father 
 bemoaning a sudden frost that has ruined his 
 splendid crops, or some disease that has carried 
 off all his cattle, and he has said to himself, 
 " This isn't the kind of life for me." 
 
 There is a remedy, however, for this evil. 
 The agriculturist of to-day is able to provide to 
 a great extent against the worst calamities that 
 can befall him. He has but to take out a policy 
 from the insurance agencies, so largely sub- 
 sidized by the Government, in order to feel at 
 ease in his mind as to the possibility of his 
 wealth in cattle being suddenly lost. 
 
 Insurance against hailstorms is not yet so 
 practicable, there being at present too many 
 agencies in this branch, and too few clients ; in 
 consequence, the risks taken are high and the 
 premiums correspondingly so. There is room 
 in this direction for developments and improve- 
 ments. 
 
 There is nothing to prevent the organizing of 
 insurance policies also though this will be a 
 more delicate business against the dangers of 
 frost, and there seems little doubt that they will 
 come in time. Why should not all the agricul- 
 turists in a particular district, of wide extent, 
 constitute themselves into a mutual benefit 
 society, whose end should be to indemnify, at 
 
 130 
 
State Aid 
 
 least in part, those members whose crops were 
 spoilt by the frost ? 
 
 But we must go beyond these things, and 
 place at the disposal of our rural population all 
 those benevolent institutions hitherto reserved 
 exclusively for our towns. 
 
 It must be frankly admitted that, until quite 
 recently, our country districts have been entirely 
 and shamefully neglected in this respect; 
 " everything for the towns " would seem to have 
 been the order of the day, the programme of all 
 our ministries and all our parliaments. The 
 explanation is quite simple. The people in the 
 towns constitute the most active and important 
 voters, making their voices heard, and securing 
 obedience to their wishes ; and their needs are 
 admirably served by a Press still more energetic, 
 which flatters them in order to maintain and 
 extend Jts own power, as well as by innumer- 
 able politicians vieing against each other with 
 promises which one of these days may have to 
 be fulfilled. 
 
 The Government iis afraid of them, and does 
 everything it can to give them satisfaction, 
 paying little or no attention to these inarticulate 
 peasants, who are so resigned to their lot and 
 whose patience is so wonderful. 
 
 When a workman falls ill or meets with an 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 accident, there are hospitals to welcome him and 
 the most skilful doctors and surgeons at his 
 service ; if he sinks into destitution and cannot 
 support his family, there is State aid available 
 for him and assistance from all kinds of philan- 
 thropic institutions ; if, through age and infirmi- 
 ties, he has got beyond work, he can go to an 
 asylum for the old. 
 
 The country labourers know of these things 
 nowadays, and it is because they know of them 
 that they long for the towns, where one can 
 always rely upon having a kindly hand held out 
 to one, and where one can sleep tranquilly in 
 the thought that, in case of need, one will never 
 be at a loss for a friend. 
 
 If we are to keep upon the land, or bring back 
 to the land, not merely the labourers ajnd small 
 farmers, but also the small landowners, we must 
 try to do for them what is done for the towns. 
 We live in an age when every one seeks security 
 and ease of mind before anything else. This 
 feeling becomes more and more intensified as 
 the struggle for life waxes more and more fierce 
 and bitter. The day when our rural districts 
 are provided for as our towns are now, the cause 
 of agriculture will prove victorious. 
 
 And it is to be admitted, I am glad to say, 
 that during the last ten years Parliament and our 
 
 132 
 
State Aid 
 
 public bodies have begun to understand better 
 their duties in this matter perhaps because our 
 rural population is beginning to realize and to 
 give signs of their political force, and to make 
 their voices heard. 
 
 The advantages they have won are not to be 
 despised, and are already making themselves 
 felt ; the law providing them with medical aid 
 without payment, for instance, and ithat which 
 helps toward the upkeep of children in the case 
 of the poorest families. 
 
 These things are a good beginning, but they 
 are only a beginning. When shall we have the 
 hospitals, the dispensaries, the almshouses ? It 
 will be said, perhaps, that it is not practicable to 
 have hospitals in every village in France. Doubt- 
 less, but it should be practicable to have a small 
 hospital in every canton, or at least one between 
 several. A simple farmhouse could be utilized 
 for the purpose no need to erect expensive 
 buildings.* 
 
 * In the Canton of Corcieux, which I have the honour of 
 representing in the general Council of the Vosges, a simple 
 peasant, endowed with the soul of an apostle, took it on himself 
 to do what neither the State, nor the De*partement, nor the 
 Canton had seen their way to undertake. He turned his 
 modest dwelling into an asylum for the old and infirm, whom 
 he picked up in the neighbourhood. With the help of his sister 
 as hospital-nurse, he carried on this ungrateful and dishearten- 
 ing work for a long time alone. As he was not well off, he was 
 
 133 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 II 
 
 But prevention is better than cure, and what 
 is above all desirable is that our working-classes 
 in the country should be taught to put away a 
 little money during their good years, the years 
 of robust health and plentiful harvests, as a 
 reserve for their bad years and their old age. 
 The savings may be minute if only they are 
 begun early and persevered in to the end. Quite 
 a small effort suffices to provide a competence 
 for a man's declining years and to guarantee his 
 family against want in the event of his death. 
 
 Unfortunately, here again we find the same 
 disparity between the state of things in the town 
 and in the country. Doubtless, the law is not 
 exclusively responsible for this disparity; the 
 National savings-banks, which provide old-age 
 
 obliged to get his patients to do a little work for him, and each 
 did what he could, thus defraying, in part, the cost of mainte- 
 nance. His benevolence met with its due reward. The good 
 Nicolo (such is the name of this modest hero) was accorded the 
 "Prix Montyon." He spent the money in developing and 
 improving his establishment. Now the Commune of Corcieux 
 and certain neighbouring Communes make contribution for the 
 care of their sick, and the State has now shown its recognition 
 of him by granting him a subvention from the Part Mutuel, 
 Thus the Nicolo Hospital has become a perfect model of such 
 rural institutions. Others might be established for almost 
 nothing. 
 
 134 
 
State Aid 
 
 pensions, are open alike to the workers in the 
 fields and the factory hands. Neither class 
 makes much use of them, because the Frenchman 
 is by nature improvident, and his education in 
 economics has still to be brought about. To 
 induce him to sacrifice a little in the present for 
 his security in the future, you must take him by 
 the hand and lead him. He is incapable of doing 
 so by himself, though he will follow with the 
 stream. 
 
 In the world of manufacturing, there is never 
 any lack of philanthropic employers, and many 
 great establishments have organized provident 
 funds for their workmen, which they themselves 
 support generously, requiring the men to con- 
 tribute only the smallest sums as an earnest of 
 their wish to put by. 
 
 But if the first impulse came from the manu- 
 facturers, the movement owes its full and flour- 
 ishing growth to^ those mutual benefit societies 
 which, since the beneficent law of 1898, have 
 been extending more and more their field of 
 action in regard to old-age pensions, and which 
 have recently been making such immense pro- 
 gress. Thanks to them, we are coming within 
 sight of the goal, and if only the Government 
 does not interfere with them, and does not seek 
 to substitute the heavy hand of the State for 
 
 135 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 the supple energy of individuals, all will be well. 
 There is no reason why this movement, still 
 confined to the towns, should not be extended 
 now to the country, where private charity is not 
 munificent, and where, in consequence, the 
 mutual benefit principle is most needed. And, 
 as a matter of fact, an effort towards intro- 
 ducing them in the rural districts is now being 
 made. 
 
 The mutual benefit societies will lead to 
 savings-banks, in regard to which also a begin- 
 ning has been made. Certain large syndicates 
 have laid the basis of an organization which is 
 now in full working order, and the first results 
 of which are most satisfactory; the way had 
 already been opened for it by the Gardeners' 
 Mutual Benefit Society of the Seine, founded 
 fifty years ago, but hitherto unique of its kind. 
 It is not until 1896 that we find another mutual 
 benefit society created by the Castelnaudary 
 syndicate, through the initiative of M. de 
 Laurens-Castalet. And it is only since 1898, and 
 as the result of the law passed in that year, that 
 the movement has been given new strength by 
 the establishment in the Charente-Inferieure of 
 two other such agricultural societies taking into 
 their operations the whole of the dtpartement. 
 The Chateau-Thierry Society, founded by the 
 
 136 
 
State Aid 
 
 distinguished agriculturist M. Carr, is another 
 instance in point. 
 
 The strongest combination of these agricul- 
 tural benefit societies may be said to be repre- 
 sented by the union of the syndicates of the 
 south-east, a body always in the van of pro- 
 gress, thanks to the initiative and indefatigable 
 devotion of its President, M. Emile Duport. 
 According to their report, they comprised in 
 1904, twenty-nine certificated societies for mutual 
 succour for the granting of pensions in illness or 
 old age. 
 
 When these associations have been estab- 
 lished all over the country, the intellectual and 
 moral transformation of the agriculturist will 
 come about of its own accord, and he will no 
 longer want to quit the soil; even those who 
 have abandoned Ut in an access of ill-humour, 
 and who have experienced the life of the towns, 
 will avail themselves of any opportunity offered 
 them of returning to their home. 
 
 For it would be a mistake to believe that 
 the peasant is dissatisfied with his lot simply 
 because he is worn out by the work and yearns 
 for a more comfortable existence. He loves the 
 soil too much for that; and the labour it 
 demands from him, however hard, does not go 
 against the grain, for it is interesting and full of 
 
 137 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 variety, and he has the sort of feeling for it that 
 an artist has for his picture. If there were not 
 at the root of the peasant's mind this unconquer- 
 able attachment to the soil, there would be no 
 one left to cultivate it. 
 
 If he ends by giving way to discouragement, 
 that is because the work does not recom- 
 pense him sufficiently, because bad years come 
 oftener than good, and above all because he has 
 no sense of security for the morrow. Under 
 the pressure of this anxiety which tortures him 
 unceasingly, he snatches at any of the other 
 careers that promise him the certainty of a roof 
 to his head in his old age. That is why he 
 becomes a postman, or a railway employ^ or a 
 customs-house officer even a street scavenger. 
 It is not the career itself, or the higher pay that 
 tempts him it is the provision for his future. 
 He sacrifices everything for this one considera- 
 tion. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The extent of the rural exodus comes out 
 clearly from the official statistics as to our 
 agricultural population. These tell us the 
 number of peasant proprietors went down from 
 1,134,000 in 1862 to 727,000 in 1882. In 1902, it 
 
 138 
 
State Aid 
 
 had sunk to 589,000. This state of affairs is 
 lamentable indeed. The remedy exists, luckily, 
 and for a long time past has been known and 
 put into practice. It came to us from America 
 under the name of " Homestead," or " rights ot 
 the family," a kind of democratic endowment, 
 created for the benefit of the very poor, to 
 guarantee them an untroubled fireside, sheltered 
 from the storms of life. 
 
 The house and bit of land constituting this 
 " homestead" form an inalienable patrimony. 
 It cannot fall into the hands of creditors except 
 under certain specified circumstances. The 
 father of the family can get his belongings 
 constituted a homestead, simply by making a 
 certain set declaration. Thenceforward he him- 
 self cannot make away with it or mortgage it 
 without the written consent of his wife. After 
 his death, the homestead remains undivided 
 in the hands of his widow and children under 
 age. 
 
 In England, the country of large landowners, 
 the Government employs different methods for 
 democratising the division of land. The County 
 Councils and the municipalities make purchases 
 of land, which they dispose of in allotments at 
 very low prices to workmen and small farmers. 
 
 In Norway and Sweden, in Denmark and in 
 139 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 Switzerland, the State itself, through the 
 medium of loan societies, advances money to 
 labourers to enable them to become proprietors. 
 
 In Germany, the small landowner, by 
 making a declaration, can prevent the dividing 
 up of his property on his decease. He may 
 bequeath it to one of his heirs, subject to a 
 payment by way of compensation to the co- 
 heirs. This system, known by the name of 
 Auerbenrecht, has the disadvantage of driving the 
 co-heirs to the towns, and often of forcing the 
 heir either to go into debt or actually to sell 
 the property in order to raise enough money 
 to pay the compensation money imposed upon 
 him. 
 
 In France, matters could be arranged more 
 easily than anywhere else. Ours is a country of 
 small farms, where there is never any difficulty 
 in getting land cheap. Doubtless it is not as 
 yet accessible to everybody ; some small capital 
 is required, but nothing could be easier than to 
 advance to would-be purchasers the quite small 
 sum required. 
 
 The experience of the agricultural mutual 
 loan societies, extending now over a period of 
 ten years, is there to tell us that there is no 
 more conscientious debtor than the agriculturist ; 
 if he does not always pay on the date fixed, he 
 
 140 
 
State Aid 
 
 always pays in the end. The bad debts of these 
 institutions are insignificant. 
 
 The problem has been under consideration 
 for so long in France that it is remarkable it has 
 not yet been solved. Numerous proposals are 
 put before Parliament under every new ministry. 
 After that of M. Leveille", brought forward in 
 1895, the most important and most carefully 
 thought out is certainly that of the Abbe" Lemire. 
 And M. Ruan, our present Minister of Agri- 
 culture, has recently submitted a very thorough- 
 going bill dealing with the subject. 
 
 According to this measure, carefully elabo- 
 rated by the Council of State after its examina- 
 tion in the Courts of Appeal, the document 
 establishing the " Bien de Famille," to cover real 
 estate to the maximum value of 8000 francs, is 
 received by a notary, and due legal publicity is 
 given to it by its transcription at the Mortgage 
 Office together with a manuscript announcement 
 at the Town Hall. In principle the "Bien" is 
 declared to be inalienable and not to be mort- 
 gaged; but the qualifications are so numerous 
 that it is questionable whether its efficacy be not 
 destroyed. Thus, the " Bien " may be seized 
 when a debt has been contracted for goods 
 supplied within six months by retail tradesmen, 
 such as butchers, bakers, and grocers. That is 
 
 141 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 a very elastic and very dangerous exception, 
 which is open to abuses, and which may allow 
 the bailiff to come in by the window when shut 
 out at the door. 
 
 The proprietor retains also the unfettered 
 right, according to this measure, to sell his 
 " Bien " with the consent of his wife, which, of 
 course, he can always secure. He can sell it the 
 day after it has been so constituted, or at any 
 subsequent period. This gives his creditors a 
 certain power over him. To protect him against 
 their assaults and against his own weakness, 
 would it not be possible to fix a certain period 
 within which this right of sale could not be 
 exercised? It can hardly be objected that this 
 would be a blow at the rights of property. No 
 one is obliged to have his property rendered 
 inalienable, and if this privilege be accorded, the 
 legislature is surely entitled to attach to it con- 
 ditions without which the object in view could 
 not be attained. 
 
 The establishment of the " Bien de Famille " 
 will not only be profitable to agricultural 
 labourers and peasant proprietors, to whom it 
 will mean freedom from anxiety, and to the 
 larger landowners, for whom it will be the means 
 of providing an abundance of the best manual 
 labour, it will also have a most beneficial effect 
 
 142 
 
State Aid 
 
 upon our social life generally, and prove the 
 most solid guarantee of the tranquillity of the 
 land. 
 
 Boissy d'Anglas, in his famous report to the 
 National Convention of 5 Messidor year III, set 
 forth the political and social role of the rights of 
 property in clear relief, and made clear to the 
 Governments of the future its beneficent effects. 
 " A country governed by proprietors," he said, 
 " is in a state of society ; one governed by non- 
 proprietors is in a state of nature." This eternal 
 truth, according to which property is the corner- 
 stone of well-ordered communities, is the con- 
 demnation of the Collectivist doctrine, according 
 to which individual ownership should be replaced 
 by the ownership of all ; it points the way to the 
 Democratic State, showing it its duty to ex- 
 tend indefinitely the field of individual property 
 by making it accessible to all. 
 
 The " Homestead " will have an advantage of 
 another, priceless kind, in that it will meet one 
 of the chief hindrances to the return to the land 
 the impossibility of ensuring the labourer 
 permanent employment. The great agricultural 
 enterprises are by their very nature intermittent, 
 and the labourer, under this new rtgime, will be 
 able to devote to his own holding the time he is 
 not earning wages in the service of others. He 
 
 143 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 will double the role of day labourer with that of 
 small farmer. 
 
 There is another force which is destined soon 
 to play an important part in the evolution of 
 agriculture electricity. In a country like 
 France, where waterfalls abound, electricity may 
 produce incalculable results. There will be 
 nothing to prevent the installation in our farms, 
 even those most remote from the great centres, 
 of motive power sufficient for many industries. 
 There are a number that need only a fraction of 
 horse-power, and there are small dynamos 
 which take up very little room, and which would 
 be available for several machines. These 
 dynamos make no noise and give out no smell 
 or heat, so that the work could be carried on 
 under the most hygienic conditions. 
 
 From the standpoint of morals, the outcome 
 of this new development should be more con- 
 siderable still. Of all the ways of enticing the 
 labourer away from drink and vice, there is none 
 better than that of reconstituting his family life 
 by bringing about work in common in the home. 
 
 144 
 
VILLAGE LIFE. 
 THE PUBLIC HEALTH 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 VILLAGE LIFE. THE PUBLIC HEALTH 
 
 I 
 
 T T 7E have finished now with what we may 
 * * ca n the scientific side of the agricultural 
 problem, but we should not be dealing adequately 
 with the question if we were to stop here, and 
 remained in the dark as to a side of it which is 
 too often overlooked and which deserves more 
 attention. 
 
 Man is a sensitive being and does not live 
 on bread alone. He has spiritual needs and is 
 never happy if there be not in his life, however 
 humble it may be, some touch of idealism; as 
 education and civilization advance, this form of 
 enjoyment occupies an increasingly important 
 place in the aspirations of mankind. If people 
 get through more work than formerly, they 
 require also more intellectual recreation and 
 amusement. 
 
 These new needs have become an essential 
 factor in our agricultural life which cannot be 
 
 147 L 2 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 overlooked. The country is more and more 
 assuming the character of the town ; the infinite 
 facilities of communication, which now enable 
 the peasant to get into town as often as he 
 chooses and to indulge in forms of pleasure 
 which were until recently unknown to him, have 
 gradually modified his ideas to such a degree 
 that his village has come to seem to him dull and 
 depressing. 
 
 We would assuredly not dream of advocating 
 the introduction into our villages of all the 
 seductive and too often immoral attractions 
 of city life this would be no less impossible 
 than undesirable ; but without going as far as 
 that, nothing could be more easy than to impart 
 to our village life a little more brightness and 
 variety to do a little more for the mind and 
 for the eyes to increase the number of 
 occasions for wholesome and inexpensive 
 pleasure. What is there to prevent us from 
 substituting for the sombre, stuffy cabaret, so 
 lugubrious of aspect that it really drives its 
 habitues to drink, a neat, clean cafe, elegant and 
 well-lit, in which a man could seek rest agreeably 
 en famille? This would be a means of con- 
 tending against the deadly vice of alcoholism 
 which we venture to commend to the considera- 
 tion of our temperance societies. They could 
 
 148 
 
Village Life. The Public Health 
 
 co-operate in this work with the agricultural 
 associations, which are eminently well qualified 
 for undertaking any form of amelioration of the 
 conditions of village life. Other such innova- 
 tions might be musical societies, shooting clubs, 
 and gymnasiaall calculated to lend animation 
 and to bring people together. 
 
 All these things are easy enough really to 
 bring about. Why, then, do they not come into 
 existence ? Simply for the lack of men with the 
 necessary initiative and energy to set them 
 going. The countryman is by. nature timid, 
 distrustful, and economical, and unready to 
 take the lead in any kind of novel enterprise. 
 He is kept back by his fear of what people will 
 say, and his dislike of responsibilities; but he 
 is ready enough to follow a good lead and to 
 join in when he sees work being done that 
 strikes him as useful and agreeable. 
 
 Where are we to find this indispensable 
 person, this bell-wether to lead our flock ? 
 He must be a bit above the ordinary inhabitants 
 of the commune, and he must be a man of some 
 independence of mind as well as of means, 
 capable of imposing his authority. He must, 
 generally speaking, be a townsman of some 
 sort, with all a townsman's knowledge of the 
 art of enjoyment, whilst imbued with a keen 
 
 149 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 interest in the life of the country ; living in the 
 country a great part of his time. 
 
 The type, unfortunately, is now much rarer 
 than it was fifty years ago. 
 
 II 
 
 Side by side with the irresistible attractions 
 of city life there is another cause which has 
 helped a good deal to stimulate the immigration 
 into the towns and the exodus from the country, 
 and that is the craving for employment by the 
 State. This is really one of the worst maladies 
 from which France suffers, full of danger for 
 our future. It has taken on larger proportions 
 during the last twenty years. The sons of our 
 bourgeois class, followed by those of our peasants, 
 have tumbled over each other in their frantic 
 efforts at getting into the civil service, while 
 fathers and mothers from the moment of the 
 birth of a son begin day-dreaming as to the 
 kind of post that will suit him best: that of 
 magistrate, sous-prefet, or polytechnicien ! The 
 whole life of the family is regulated in accord- 
 ance with these grandiose ambitions ; they must 
 make their way into the town to see to the 
 education of their small prodigy and to establish 
 
 150 
 
Village Life. The Public Health 
 
 a good connection for him before launching 
 him on his career. Thus they abandon their 
 country home for good, never again to re- 
 visit it.* 
 
 This lamentable frame of mind is fortunately 
 being modified profoundly by a number of 
 causes. The violence of our political passions, 
 which does so much^ harm in other ways, has, 
 at least, had one beneficial effect in discouraging 
 many fathers from office-seeking on behalf of 
 their sons. The spirit of persecution which 
 has grown up in parliamentary circles has 
 brought with it so great a degree of instability 
 into our public service that people are beginning 
 to hold aloof from it; now that it lacks the 
 absolute security which was its sole charm, 
 it has no attractions. 
 
 This tendency may save us from many 
 dangers by giving back to our bourgeoisie the 
 energy and virility it too often lacks. When 
 its children make up their minds to enter into 
 the battle of life and make a position for them- 
 selves, when they decide to start businesses or 
 cultivate land of their own, at home or in our 
 
 * In the district of the prefecture of the Seine alone, we 
 hear of 30,000 applications for the post of cantonnier, 7000 for 
 that of office boy, 5000 for that of concierges in schools over 
 50,000 applicants for how many posts ? perhaps 400. 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 colonies, the naturally strong sap in our French 
 blood will begin to rise once more, and we shall 
 cease to be a flock of sheep, and begin again 
 to be a race of free men. 
 
 There will be a means of hastening this 
 desirable change and bringing about our trans- 
 formation, and this will be by beginning the 
 all-important work of decentralization one ol 
 the most important tasks before us now and 
 entirely neglected by Parliament. This must 
 be taken in hand soon, unless France is to 
 succumb under the burden of taxation and its 
 bureaucracy. Why should we not apply to the 
 services of the State the formula which tends 
 to the success of business concerns, and which 
 should govern every branch of human activity : 
 a less numerous personnel, working hard and 
 well remunerated ? 
 
 Let this formula be put boldly into practice, 
 let the productive forces of the country have 
 the benefit of all the intelligence and energy 
 now dormant in the dull atmosphere of the 
 office, and we shall see a reflowering of agri- 
 culture, strengthened by the living forces of 
 which she has been too long deprived. And, 
 at the same time, we shall be bringing back 
 to the soil the capital of which she is so much 
 in want. 
 
 152 
 
Village Life. The Public Health 
 
 III 
 
 For it is the desertion of the land by the 
 bourgeoisie that, by narrowing the ranks of its 
 purchasers, has led the bulk of the capitalists 
 to class rural property as a bad investment and 
 to take their money elsewhere. When they 
 see the well-to-do bourgeois giving up his country 
 estate and settling in town, they say to them- 
 selves that it is much better for them to buy 
 railway shares or Government bonds, which 
 will always be negotiable, than to encumber 
 themselves with possessions of which they may 
 be unable afterwards to dispose. 
 
 On the other hand, when they see the 
 bourgeois class settling down again in the 
 country, and taking pride and pleasure in his 
 estate, and its members vieing with each other 
 in their efforts to secure the richest soil and 
 best sites, the value of landed property will 
 go up with a rush. This is made certain by 
 the fact that already in certain parts of France, 
 where the bourgeoisie has begun again to seek 
 out pleasant retreats, there is to be noted a 
 considerable rise in prices. 
 
 The tendency in the world of finance is at 
 present all in favour of investments in land. 
 
 153 
 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 The value of personal estate is going down, 
 while that of real estate is going up. There 
 can be no question to-day that a landed 
 property which is well managed, and is not 
 stinted as regards capital, is a better invest- 
 ment than State bonds. 
 
 The manufacturing industries, of course, 
 still retain their fascination for those in a 
 hurry to become rich. But, alas ! the golden 
 days of industry are gone by, and will never 
 be seen again. Industrial profits are becoming 
 daily less and less; to be convinced of this 
 we have but to glance at the reports of the 
 countless companies, even those best managed, 
 which for years past have been yielding con- 
 temptible dividends of 2 or 3 per cent, when 
 they have been able to declare a dividend at 
 all. For industrial risks are increasing, and 
 side by side with the firms that succeed must 
 be placed those which are ruined, or which 
 are living upon their capital. 
 
 When these striking comparisons have 
 been fully noted, capital will begin gradually 
 to forsake industry for agriculture. And this 
 will be a great benefit for industry itself. 
 Too great an influx of capital is for it an 
 irresistible temptation, drawing it into undue 
 efforts and expansion, and helping to bring 
 
 154 
 
Village Life. The Public Health 
 
 about that state of over-production for which 
 we are seeking the remedy. 
 
 We must not quarrel with capital over this. 
 We must not exclaim " Out upon capital ! " as 
 did M. Vaillant in the Chamber of Deputies. 
 No, capital is a benefactor, and M. Vaillant is 
 ungrateful when he attacks it; he forgets that 
 it is capital that gives employment to the 
 labourer and enables him to earn his wages. 
 But it is better that capital should not settle 
 exclusively on one spot, lest it should thus 
 help to create a disastrous obstruction. M. 
 Vaillant's mistake is to condemn capital itself, 
 when he should be condemning merely its bad 
 distribution the sole cause of the evil he de- 
 plores; when capital is well distributed, it 
 will continue its beneficent work, and harmony 
 will be restored to the world of labour. 
 
 IV 
 
 Popular literature might have a great role 
 to play in this work of moral and social re- 
 generation; it might help largely in changing 
 the ideas and habits and character both of 
 our townsfolk and of our countryfolk, and in 
 modifying their conceptions of life and of 
 happiness. 
 
 155 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 Unfortunately, it seems more and more to 
 forget this noble educative mission. When it is 
 not marked by a pornographic tendency which 
 is one of the most pernicious evils of our 
 time, it is apt to do nothing but minister to 
 our lowest appetites and most violent passions ; 
 it spreads out before our eyes a mass of hideous 
 scenes as though in the endeavour to turn men 
 into beasts. 
 
 In opposition to this decadent literature, 
 fortunately, there has been coming into exist- 
 ence for some years past something very 
 different a literature of the future, full of ap- 
 preciation for all that is beautiful, the beauty 
 of nature, the beauty of strong, sane manhood, 
 the beauty of the inner life ; it appeals to the 
 noblest feelings of the human soul, and en- 
 deavours to reawaken in it the taste for 
 simplicity of life and the joys of home. 
 
 It is from this new theme that M. Rene" 
 Bazin has drawn his striking and moving scenes 
 in his splendid book, "La Terre qui meurt." 
 
 Nothing could better serve the cause of 
 morality than this work, which deserves to be 
 read and reflected upon by everybody. It 
 would make the sons of the bourgeois realize 
 how easily a man goes to his ruin when he 
 runs after money, and is not content with the 
 
 156 
 
Village Life. The Public Health 
 
 life of modest comfort and security that the 
 land provides for those who cling to it. It 
 would make them appreciate the advantages 
 of this large, serene, independent existence, in 
 which a man may find the maximum of well- 
 being to be got anywhere in the world. 
 
 To the peasant, tempted to give way because 
 he finds the work too hard and the wages too 
 scanty, it would show that in the towns also 
 everything is not couleur de rose, that the 
 pleasures to be enjoyed there are often paid 
 for dearly, and that at every step misery and 
 despair stand in wait for the poor wretches who 
 fall victims to the mirage of city life. 
 
 This, indeed, is an opportune moment for 
 embarking upon a crusade in favour of the 
 land, for the public seems disposed to listen. 
 There can be no doubt that there is a spirit 
 abroad leading our countrymen into new fields. 
 The reaction against the life of the town is 
 growing stronger, while the call of the country 
 daily gathers strength and is becoming irre- 
 sistible. 
 
 Everything contributes to this instinctive 
 and deep-laid tendency : the lassitude of our 
 townsmen ; their weariness of a life always 
 unwholesome and disturbed; the outbreaks of 
 political, religious, and social conflicts, that 
 
 157 
 
 v 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 produce a craving for peace and quiet, and 
 make men turn their eyes longingly towards 
 the tranquil countryside ; above all, the ruin 
 of constitutions brought about by the ill-ordered 
 existence of our towns. 
 
 For there can be no doubt that the principal 
 cause of all the insidious and mysterious mala- 
 dies so prevalent to-day, but almost unknown 
 to our fathers all the different forms of nervous 
 affections, hypochondria, neurasthenia, anaemia 
 of the brain, and tuberculosis are due to the 
 vitiated atmosphere in which our degenerate 
 civilization has plunged the human species 
 during the last half-century. This unnatural 
 existence, against which the funds of health 
 and strength we inherited from our ancestors 
 were "able for a while to hold out, has ended 
 by undermining our physique and baffling all 
 remedies.* 
 
 Long ago, in Emile, Jean-Jacques Rousseau 
 prophesied the dangers impending over the 
 
 * The state of things in Paris is terrible. It appears from a 
 communication made recently by Professor Grancher to the 
 Academy of Medicine, that one out of every six children attend- 
 ing the public schools suffers from consumption. Another 
 physician, Dr. George Bourgeois, has demonstrated very con- 
 clusively that the countryfolk transplanted to Paris, the 
 dtracints as they are very aptly styled, furnish a much more 
 numerous contingent to death from tuberculosis than the 
 Parisians by birth. 
 
 158 
 
Village Life. The Public Health 
 
 generations to come. "Men," he said, "were 
 never meant to be heaped up together in ant- 
 hills, they were to be scattered sparsely over 
 the soil which they should be cultivating. 
 Infirmities of the body and vices .of the mind 
 are the inevitable outcome of too densely 
 packed masses of human beings. Of all the 
 animals, man is by nature least gregarious. 
 Men penned up together like sheep must soon 
 perish. Their very breath is poisonous to 
 each other not merely physically but morally 
 as well. Towns are the abysses of the human 
 race. At the end of several generations, races 
 will be degenerating or perishing, and will have 
 to be renewed. And it will be always from 
 the country that the renewal will come." 
 
 Michelet said the same thing more succinctly 
 and with a charming touch of poetry : " Of all 
 the flowers, the flower of humanity stands most 
 in need of the sun." 
 
 The art of medicine is at the end of its 
 resources, and having exhausted all its means, 
 has come at last to the same conclusions as 
 these two great thinkers.* It has said to itself 
 
 * An eminent economist who is at the same time a philan- 
 thropist of boundless devotion, M. Cheysson, has recently 
 dealt with this topic in a very remarkable document addressed 
 to the Office Central des CEuvres de Bienfaisance, under the 
 
 159 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 that to suppress a disease you must first of all 
 remove its cause, and it has ended by proclaim- 
 ing that the only real remedy is to be found in 
 a return to nature, to the life for which we were 
 intended, life in the open, with its peace and 
 quiet. 
 
 Thus it is that fresh-air cures have come to 
 be the basis of medical treatments, the universal 
 remedy for most of the diseases which afflict 
 mankind to-day. The sanatorium has become 
 ubiquitous, it is to be found everywhere. In 
 certain regions of the Alps one scarcely knows 
 where to take refuge, if one wishes to avoid the 
 neighbourhood of the innumerable victims of 
 the malady of the century. 
 
 But the sanatorium is not a solution ; it is 
 a desperate expedient which may prove more 
 dangerous than the evil itself. It may cure the 
 invalid, but it may propagate the disease and 
 cause it to become ineradicable. What is pre- 
 ferable to the sanatorium is individual isola- 
 tion permanent isolation in the midst of the 
 reinvigorating pure air of the fields. 
 
 If " nature treatment " is not always enough 
 in itself to cure inveterate disease, it is at least 
 an infallible system for .keeping it away. All 
 
 title "La Misere provinciate a Paris." The remedy he 
 advocates is ours the return to the land. 
 
 160 
 
Village Life. The Public Health 
 
 you who are in fear as to your children's health, 
 who live in perpetual anxiety at the sight of 
 their pallid ; sickly faces, do not hesitate if you 
 wish to save these little beings who are so dear 
 to you, have the courage to come to one of those 
 great and strong decisions that sometimes mean 
 the saving of health and life. Go off with your 
 children to the fields, and try to leave them 
 there as long as possible altogether, if you 
 can. Thanks to the revivifying bath of country 
 air, you will see them bloom afresh. 
 
 Much has recently been done by our philan- 
 thropists to enable our working classes in the 
 towns to indulge the love of nature which has 
 been making so much headway everywhere. 
 One great society in particular has done 
 wonders in this direction. Founded by M. 
 l'Abb6 Lemire and M. Louis Riviere, following 
 in the footsteps of that large-hearted woman, 
 Mme. Hervieu, the Workman's Garden Society 
 has undertaken to place gardens at the disposal 
 of workmen's families in the cities, either free 
 of cost or for a very moderate subscription in 
 cases where a man wishes to become absolute 
 proprietor at some quite low price. 
 
 161 M 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 The idea was so good and wise that it soon 
 won the support of generous and sympathetic 
 minds, as the results of ten years 1 work suffice 
 to show. In 1903 it had arranged for no fewer 
 than 6458 gardens, distributed among 294 
 groups of workmen, and covering in all more 
 than 500 acres. 
 
 The movement is well launched therefore, 
 and everything seems to promise that it will 
 make its way into every part of France. It is 
 to be hoped that it will go deeper too, and that 
 it will help to cure one of our most painful and 
 disquieting maladies that of vagabondage. 
 
 On the i$th of December, 1807, Napoleon I., 
 in a brief access of philanthropy, wrote to his 
 Minister of the Interior : " By the beginning of 
 the season of beauty, France must present the 
 spectacle of a country without beggars." Alas ! 
 that season of beauty has been a long time 
 coming, and the number of beggars has multi- 
 plied so since 1807 that now they constitute 
 an army of 400,000 vagabonds that Napoleon 
 himself would not have dealt with easily. 
 
 We have already spoken of the way in which 
 our countryside is ravaged by these vagrants, 
 who at certain periods of the year descend 
 upon it like clouds of locusts. The sense of 
 insecurity involved by this plague has counted 
 
 162 
 
Village Life. The Public Health 
 
 for a good deal in the desertion of the rural 
 districts, and especially in the depreciation of 
 isolated estates. 
 
 Unfortunately, the gendarmes cannot be 
 everywhere, and no matter how their number 
 might be increased, they would always prove 
 insufficient to deal with vagabondage until the 
 extent of this trouble has been reduced within 
 the narrowest possible limits. It is the plague 
 itself that must be coped with, if it is to be 
 circumscribed and extirpated. We must find 
 some means of rooting these vagrants to the 
 soil and thus putting an end to their nomadic 
 existence. 
 
 The country that has best understood the 
 necessity of this, and that has found the most 
 ingenious and practical method of carrying it 
 out is Holland, long famous for its State aids to 
 work, and especially work upon the land. So 
 far back as 1818, General van den Bosch had the 
 happy thought of finding work for numbers of 
 unemployed who appealed to him for assistance ; 
 he built a series of farms, which he placed 
 collectively at their disposal, giving preference, 
 naturally, to the most hard-working and deserv- 
 ing. To-day the society which owes its origin 
 to this philanthropic act affords employment to 
 over 2000 people. That is nothing very great, 
 
 163 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 assuredly, even in a small country like Holland ; 
 but the idea has developed greatly and borne 
 other fruit since 1818. A law of 1843 authorized 
 communes which possessed waste lands to 
 dispose of them in allotments at reduced prices 
 to people out of work. At Francken, the public 
 savings bank deals similarly with ground 
 belonging to it. At Uithuizen, there is a 
 benevolent society which has acquired about 
 sixteen acres of ground, and divided it up 
 amongst 197 individuals, at a total rent of 833 
 florins. Certain societies, too, have made 
 arrangements for enabling tenants to become 
 proprietors on easy terms. 
 
 We could cite instances of many other such 
 institutions in Holland, but enough has been 
 said to demonstrate that there is no better or 
 safer way of preventing vagabondage than by 
 this of rooting the vagrant upon the soil. 
 
 In France we have hitherto merely lamented 
 things and appealed to the public authorities. 
 A few prefects, not wholly absorbed in politics, 
 have given their attention and efforts to the 
 matter. The one who has achieved the best 
 results is undoubtedly M. Alapetite, prefect of 
 the Pas-de-Calais, who has understood that the 
 only way of dealing with the vagabond was to 
 find him work and a settled place to do it in. 
 
 164 
 
Village Life. The Public Health 
 
 He began by instituting a dep6t for his dfyarte- 
 ment, and hence all alien vagrants were sent off 
 to whatever other dtpartement they belonged to. 
 Those left were installed in yards and set to 
 work breaking stones, at a wage of from i franc 
 50 to 3 francs the cube metre. Women were 
 employed plaiting straw, etc. 
 
 The expenses involved do not exceed 15,000 
 francs a year, a small sum considering the ex- 
 cellent results, for the dtyartement of the Pas-de- 
 Calais has thus been set free from a veritable 
 plague. 
 
 But such methods should be supplemented 
 by the Dutch system of State aid to the land. 
 Why should not small farms, subventioned by 
 the Government and by the dfyartement, be 
 established all over France, and be allotted to 
 the most deserving specimens among these 
 tramps, who might thus be transformed into 
 flourishing small tenant-proprietors ? 
 
 165 
 
ARTISANS AND PEASANTS 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 ARTISANS AND PEASANTS 
 
 I 
 
 THE problem we have been studyingthat of 
 modifying and amending the present con- 
 ditions of the labour market by restoring the 
 equilibrium between manufacture and agriculture 
 has been made the subject of a very profound 
 study by one of the most conspicuous leaders of 
 the Socialist party in Belgium, Mr. Vandervelde, 
 in his work, "L'Exode rural et le retour aux 
 champs," recently published. 
 
 M. Vandervelde has been impressed, like 
 every one else, by the rapidity with which the 
 rural population . has pressed into the cities, 
 there to stifle and come to grief; and he views 
 with alarm the change that has ensued in the 
 conditions alike of labour and of the home. His 
 examination of the facts under his eyes, together 
 with the statistics he has drawn up so con- 
 scientiously, has led him quite close to the truth ; 
 and he would have arrived at the truth itself, had 
 
 169 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 he not been under the sway of a pre-conceived 
 doctrine which has entirely falsified the results. 
 
 For M. Vandervelde, the manufacturing class 
 is far superior to the agricultural class, simply 
 because it has, in his eye, the advantage of being 
 educated according to Socialist ideas and quali- 
 fied in this way for taking its share in the social 
 revolution now in progress. The peasant seems 
 to him an inferior being, narrow-minded, egoistic, 
 obstinate, impenetrable to new ideas. "How- 
 ever great," he says, " may be the evils engendered 
 by the concentration in cities, this state of things 
 has at least the inestimable advantage in our 
 eyes of wresting thousands of individuals out of 
 the mental inertia, the cribbed and cabined 
 individualism which characterize the great bulk 
 of our agricultural population." 
 
 Starting from this standpoint, it is not 
 surprising that M. Vandervelde is but little pre- 
 occupied with the amelioration of the lot of the 
 existing rural classes, and that he is so easily 
 reconciled to that exodus whose disastrous 
 effects, from an agricultural point of view, he 
 analyses so carefully in the earlier chapters of 
 his book He regards it simply as something 
 decreed by Fate, inevitable and irreparable ; he 
 does not believe in the possibility of bringing 
 the workers back to the land. But as he can 
 
 170 
 
Artisans and Peasants 
 
 hardly end with a mere negation after painting 
 so convincing and distressing a picture, he finds 
 a via media, and proposes simply to make semi- 
 agriculturists out of artisans, contriving for them 
 the benefits of a country existence by way of 
 counteracting the hardships of life in the cities. 
 
 To this end he points out as a first method 
 that which exists already in Belgium and which 
 he would like to see adopted elsewhere ; this 
 consists in transporting the home of the work- 
 men out of the slums into the rural suburbs and 
 even into the open country. In this way the 
 father of the family can earn his living in the 
 city, while his wife keeps house in the country 
 and cultivates, with the help of their children, 
 the bit of land which provides cheaply for some 
 part of their needs. 
 
 In Belgium this system is carried out on a 
 large scale, and no one is better placed than 
 M. Vendervelde for observing its results. It is 
 made practicable by the co-operation of the 
 railway companies, who run workmen's trains 
 at extremely reduced rates. The number of 
 Belgium workmen who live under these con- 
 ditions is estimated at 100,000. 
 
 M. Vandervelde, however, does not disguise 
 the fact that this system has its drawbacks ; he 
 draws a saddening picture of the workman, 
 
 171 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 getting up an hour, or even two hours, before 
 the opening of the factory, hurrying to catch 
 his train, and then returning home, utterly 
 exhausted, at ten o'clock at night. It is hard 
 to see what good he gets out of the arrangement, 
 however beneficial it may be to his family. The 
 amount of fresh air he enjoys between ten at 
 night and five in the morning can scarcely com- 
 pensate him for the taxation on his energies 
 that is involved in the journey to and fro. 
 
 II 
 
 M. Vandervelde himself, recognizing that this 
 is the weak point of the system, proceeds to 
 put forward a plan which is infinitely more 
 practical, and which he himself regards as the 
 dernier mot of progress : instead of transporting 
 the artisan into the country, he proposes to 
 transplant the factory itself. This, in truth, 
 would be an ideal state of affairs, if it could 
 be effected by the waving of a wand. To 
 support his contention, M. Vandervelde records 
 with satisfaction that this movement has for 
 some time past been in evolution for reasons 
 which he deplores, but with happy consequences 
 which he welcomes. 
 
 172 
 
Artisans and Peasants 
 
 He notes that many manufacturers remove 
 their works into the country in order to make 
 a saving in wages, and to remove their men 
 from the contagious influence of revolutionary 
 societies. It's an ill wind that blows nobody 
 good, he reflects philosophically. At least the 
 workmen are in this way better housed, have 
 less expenses, they breathe fresh air, and are 
 able to go in for a little gardening. This is 
 the true solution, he concludes, the only possible 
 solution, of the problem. Thus are combined 
 the advantages of the agriculturist's healthy 
 surroundings and the artisan's higher pay. 
 
 This combination is, in truth, a very happy 
 one, and we unite with M. Vandervelde in 
 recommending it most strongly we wish 
 cordially to see factories thus transplanted, and 
 the workers exchanging joyfully the ugly amuse- 
 ments of their city life for the wholesome 
 atmosphere of the country. 
 
 In England, this system has been applied 
 in a way that approaches to perfection. Starting 
 from the idea that our existing towns have been 
 built haphazard fashion, without a plan, without 
 proper provision for hygienic conditions, the 
 founders of these rural cities sought to show 
 that nothing could be simpler than to reconcile 
 the well-being of the workmen with the needs 
 
 173 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 of the business and the economizing of expense. 
 The project thus stated seems so simple, 
 ingenuous almost, that it brings a cynical smile 
 to the lips. 
 
 In truth, it is easier said than done. All our 
 cities, even the largest, were at one time in the 
 country. Paris itself for many centuries was 
 nothing but a vast park almost a forest. It is 
 the force of things that has prevailed gradually 
 to transform it into the serried mass of human 
 habitations now familiar to us. It is regrettable, 
 no doubt, from a hygienic standpoint, but how 
 are such things to be prevented ? 
 
 Nothing easier, exclaim our generous re- 
 formers, eager to remould the world anew into 
 its original shape. Let us leave existing cities 
 as they are, as it is unfortunately too late to set 
 them right ; but let us start afresh now, profiting 
 by experience, and prevent mankind from falling 
 back into the old disastrous ruts. Let us build 
 new cities on open spaces, upon plans dictated 
 by hygiene, brotherly love, and common sense, 
 making in advance such provisions as will 
 prevent our work from being injuriously affected 
 by any whims of the inhabitants ; let us contrive 
 an insuperable barrier to this by so arranging 
 our plan as to leave a certain amount of un- 
 occupied ground, to be touched by nobody, 
 
Artisans and Peasants 
 
 round all the houses and churches and work- 
 shops. And let us so enrich the whole with 
 flowers and foliage as to justify the use of the 
 term " Garden City." 
 
 These garden cities are to-day a reality. In 
 the face of several thriving specimens of them, 
 the system can no longer be regarded as 
 Utopian. It is only natural that the idea should 
 have its birth in England, where it comes to 
 fruit under the most favourable conditions in 
 that land of wide acres and enterprising spirits, 
 as well as of large fortunes capable of enjoying 
 the luxury of embarking upon big schemes. 
 
 Ill 
 
 It would seem impossible to find a more 
 complete and perfect organization of a manu- 
 facturing business combined with country life 
 than those which have recently come into being, 
 and are now in full operation at Port Sunlight 
 and Bournville. These two garden cities are 
 the creation of two great English manufacturers, 
 as notable for their practical minds as for their 
 ardent philanthropy. 
 
 The first, Mr. Lever, is the great soap 
 manufacturer, who, after making a colossal 
 
 175 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 fortune, took it into his head one day to 
 transplant his factories right into the country, 
 to a site admirably chosen, constructing hard by 
 them a model village, with spacious avenues and 
 pretty cottages, comfortable as well as artistic 
 the whole enriched by trees and meadows. 
 These habitations, at the most modest cost, 
 he placed at the disposal of his employees. 
 
 It was another great manufacturer, Mr. 
 Cadbury, who constructed the similar village 
 of Bournville. French working-men who read 
 the account given of these two Edens by M. 
 Benoit Levy in his recent book, will yearn for 
 fresh air and be unwilling any longer to shut 
 themselves up in the squalid holes in which 
 they are confined in the towns. 
 
 Unfortunately, many are called but few are 
 chosen, and these two splendid model cities 
 are still exceptions even in England. Such 
 creations are not possible for every one; they 
 are practicable only in the case of very pro- 
 sperous industries, which can afford to sink 
 large sums and to pay high wages. The rents 
 at Port Sunlight and Bournville are much 
 higher than could be paid by the bulk of 
 workers in other businesses. 
 
 We admit most willingly that these generous 
 and disinterested experiments are worthy of all 
 
 176 
 
Artisans and Peasants 
 
 praise, and we should never think of throwing 
 cold water on them ; they represent a movement 
 which deserves careful attention and which will 
 make its way.* It is being directed by men of 
 energy and conviction men who are not to be 
 frightened by obstacles and who are impelled by 
 the faith that moves mountains. No one can say 
 where they will stop. 
 
 But however far they may go, they must 
 stop sooner or later. In the very nature of 
 things, garden cities will always be something 
 exceptional and isolated, available only for a 
 very small section of mankind. Happy they 
 who succeed in finding their way into them; 
 but how many will there be in all ? It is not to 
 be imagined that all our great manufactories are 
 going to follow suit. Nor is it to be supposed 
 even that all those which do so will reap success 
 as a consequence of the move. The industrial 
 struggle of to-day is no idyll, and to win one's 
 way in it, it is often necessary to make the best 
 of very unpleasant and uninviting surroundings. 
 
 A great French manufacturer, M. Schneider of Creusot, 
 is about, it seems, to attempt something of the same kind. 
 There are probably not two French firms that could venture 
 on such a project as he contemplates: the creation of a 
 garden city capable of holding 6000 workers at Champagne- 
 sur-Seine, side by side with electricity works. 
 
 177 N 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 IV 
 
 But we have allowed M. Vandervelde to 
 beguile us away too far from our subject. The 
 question is not how to retain the workers in the 
 factories, but how to lead back to the land those 
 surplus hands that can find no employment in 
 the cities. 
 
 Far from solving this problem, M. Vander- 
 velde does but intensify it and make it more 
 complex, for the advantages he proposes to 
 extend to the artisans offer an additional 
 temptation to lure away agricultural labourers 
 from the soil. 
 
 He has left entirely on one side the principal 
 factor in the question, and has only devoted his 
 mind to the condition of the workman's home. 
 He has not asked himself the preliminary 
 question as to what will be the effects upon the 
 workman himself of the scientific and economic 
 revolution which is tending every day to 
 decrease the numbers of hands employed in 
 manufacturing. What is to be done with those 
 who lose their occupation ? Is it wise, is it 
 democratic to ignore this grim eventuality and 
 to make no kind of provision for it ? 
 
 So much said by way of criticism, we must 
 178 
 
Artisans and Peasants 
 
 nevertheless recognize that we can turn M. 
 Vandervelde's second solution to good account 
 by extending and modifying it, and can make of 
 it an evolutionary stage between manufacturing 
 and agriculture which is worth serious con- 
 sideration, and which would solve our problem 
 at least in some degree. From semi-agri- 
 culturist our artisan should be able to become, 
 when the time arrives, an agriculturist pure and 
 simple. While the system will tend to modify 
 the hardships of unemployment in the cities at 
 moments when, owing to over-production, the 
 labour-market is slack, there are very few 
 branches of industry which have not sometimes 
 their dead season, and if at these times they 
 keep all hands at work, it means that they 
 accumulate stock to such a degree that pro- 
 longed periods of crisis ensue. 
 
 It is on this account that the law permits 
 certain industries, specially dependent upon the 
 seasons, to increase their working-hours when 
 the demand for their goods is greatest, thus 
 enabling them to decrease their working-hours 
 at other times. In the case of these industries, 
 and of many others to which the law does not 
 extend the same privileges, a cessation of work 
 for one day in the week is sometimes a real 
 necessity as a measure of precaution. But how 
 
 179 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 is the interest of the workman to be reconciled 
 with that of the work, how atone to him for 
 docking him of a day's wages ? Here is where 
 M. Vandervelde's scheme comes in so well. 
 Our artisan can put in the extra time working 
 on his land. Presently he may find that the 
 hours thus spent are more profitable than they 
 would have been at the manufactory. In this 
 way stoppages of work might become a regular 
 thing under quite satisfactory conditions, and 
 prove a veritable safety-valve to the manu- 
 facturing industry. 
 
 It may be objected that the system will not 
 work because those manufacturers who cannot 
 give their men its benefits will probably continue 
 to work full time, while the semi-agriculturists 
 are spending the slack time in the country, and 
 the latter would in this way be at a disadvantage. 
 
 This would be so, if there were no means of 
 restoring the equilibrium, but the means are at 
 hand and well known. They consist of a method 
 of redemption arranged between establishments 
 which cannot afford to stop work, and those 
 which are obliged to do so. In most cases the 
 stoppage is foreseen and provided for satis- 
 factorily in this way. 
 
 This semi-industrial, semi-agricultural evolu- 
 tion will come about gradually as soon as our 
 
 1 80 
 
Artisans and Peasants 
 
 French industries shall have been steered in the 
 right direction, and as soon as our working- 
 men recognize the need of it. They will regain 
 their lost knowledge of agricultural lore simply 
 by force of working in their own fields, and the 
 love of the land will be reborn again in their 
 hearts. This, together with the strong senti- 
 ment of personal ownership, will suffice to 
 recreate the old rural spirit, and in time to give 
 it predominance over the call of the city. 
 
THE PRESENT CONDITION OF 
 AGRICULTURE 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE PRESENT CONDITION OF AGRICULTURE 
 
 I 
 
 A/T VANDERVELDE pulls us up with another 
 *y*- objection which looks formidable at first 
 sight the diminution of agricultural labour due 
 to the introduction of machinery and the trans- 
 formation of methods of culture. In agriculture, 
 as in manufacture, he tells us, machinery is 
 taking the place of man in an increasing degree. 
 Every day marks some new progress in 
 mechanism and a corresponding deduction from 
 the demand for human hands; the methods of 
 culture most approved are those which demand 
 least manual labour. It is in these circum- 
 stances, he exclaims, that you would try to win 
 back to the land the hapless artisans of the 
 town! 
 
 The objection is not without weight, but it 
 can be met easily enough. And first of all, 
 there is a very great difference between the uses 
 made of machinery in manufactures and in 
 
 185 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 agriculture. In manufactures the machine is 
 everything it replaces manual labour alto- 
 gether. In agriculture, the part played by the 
 machine, even the most highly perfected, is very 
 different. It will be some time before we see 
 machines capable of growing corn and potatoes, 
 beetroot and grapes ! Nature is exacting, and 
 will always refuse to yield her treasures to man 
 until he has expended efforts of brain and 
 muscle for which no substitute can be found. 
 This truth has been well expressed by M. 
 Cheysson in the little book to which I have 
 referred already. "The peasant," he says, "is 
 at the mercy of the cycle of the seasons. He 
 cannot improvise an oak, or a vine, or even 
 a rose ; and, forced alternately, like Maitre 
 Jacques, to harrow and sow and reap, he is 
 immune from the sub-division of labour which 
 has transformed our manufacturing industries. 
 ... It is thus that the earth defends its toilers 
 against the dangers of over-crowding, which is 
 one of the most baneful characteristics of our 
 great cities." 
 
 Let us deal now with the other objection, 
 that the methods of culture now most in vogue 
 are those which require least manual labour. 
 It is surprising that M. Vandervelde himself 
 has not perceived that his reasoning rests upon 
 
 1 86 
 
The Present Condition of Agriculture 
 
 a begging of the whole question ; if our agricul- 
 turists have forsaken their old methods of 
 culture, this is due precisely to the rural exodus. 
 They have forsaken their old methods regret- 
 fully, and would be only too pleased to return to 
 their time-honoured system of rotations of crops, 
 if they could secure sufficient labourers for the 
 purpose. 
 
 During the agricultural crisis every one went 
 in for meadow-lands and the rearing of cattle, 
 but many agriculturists question now whether 
 we did not go too far in this direction. Already 
 we are forced to try to find markets for our 
 best cattle abroad. This will help the foreigner 
 to improve his stock, thus eventually enabling 
 our customers to be independent of us. When 
 that day comes, we shall be glad enough to fall 
 back upon our former products. The trade in 
 cereals, in which we excel, is not languishing 
 now, to judge by what is happening at this 
 moment in the United States, which were 
 obliged to import foreign corn last year for their 
 enormous population. 
 
 It is to be hoped, moreover, that our agricul- 
 ture would develop in accordance with the needs 
 of the market, which are infinitely elastic. Here, 
 again, we come upon a fundamental difference 
 between agriculture and manufacture. As we 
 
 187 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 have already remarked, when we are sufficiently 
 supplied with clothes and furniture, we stop 
 buying, and are not to be tempted even by low 
 prices. Therefore it is folly to say to our 
 manufacturers : " Keep on producing no need 
 to trouble about anything," instead of saying, 
 " Be careful only to produce in accordance with 
 the needs of the market. Otherwise you will be 
 ruined." 
 
 It is quite different with our food supplies; 
 there is no doubt that there is a far larger 
 demand for them all over the world. If the 
 artisan and even the agricultural labourer are 
 better clothed and housed than they used to be, 
 they are far from being so well fed. In the 
 great cities, [in which workmen require really 
 good food to enable them to cope with the 
 deleterious influences of their surroundings, 
 the nourishment they have to make shift with 
 is often very inadequate. The same can be 
 said of certain country districts where poverty 
 is endemic. What existence could be more 
 miserable than that of the great families of 
 Breton peasants and fisherfolk so often con- 
 demned to a state bordering on famine ? 
 
 It should be accounted a duty to do for the 
 food of the masses what has already been done 
 for their clothing and their housing ; hence the 
 
 188 
 
The Present Condition of Agriculture 
 
 necessity of fostering the great revival of 
 agriculture, especially in the direction of small 
 farms which also provide most scope for manual 
 labour. When our workers, alike in town and 
 country, have begun to eat more bread, and meat, 
 and vegetables, and cheese, and fruit, the land 
 will have to be cultivated more and more; no 
 one can form any idea of the enormous quantity 
 of products that can be absorbed by mankind. 
 
 II 
 
 Thus it is we read the future of industrious 
 humanity; for the question which calls for 
 consideration in France, calls for consideration 
 a little everywhere, and everywhere the same 
 conclusions are being arrived at, and the same 
 methods put into practice. 
 
 This revival of agriculture is not to be 
 accounted for entirely by economic reasons, 
 by the necessity for opening out new channels 
 of labour for the working-classes; it is due 
 partly to a cause more profound, to the instinct 
 of self-preservation which guides nations as 
 well as individuals, and which gives them warn- 
 ing of impending dangers. Now, is there any 
 greater danger for a country than for it to be 
 
 189 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 in the power of the foreigner, by being depen- 
 dent upon the foreigner for its food supply? 
 That is England's position now, and it is not 
 an enviable one. It is a subject of constant 
 and justifiable anxiety for that great country, 
 so powerful otherwise; if England were ever 
 engaged in a great war, any slight mishap, any 
 surprise attack upon the seas, might cut off her 
 supplies and starve her immense population. 
 Without imagining the worst, it is at least 
 certain that on the day England went to war, 
 the price of provisions in England would rise 
 to such an extent as would cause the Govern- 
 ment internal embarrassment* 
 
 There is a terrible unfathomed danger ahead 
 of her, and it is very natural that the other 
 
 * The situation in England has been getting steadily worse 
 in this respect for the last fifty years. The importation of 
 cereals, which amounted to only 83,000,000 cwt. in 1871, had 
 reached 196,000,000 in 1901 ; corn alone had risen to 69,000,000 
 cwt. from 39,000,000. The horned cattle imported in 1871 
 amounted to 248,000 head; in 1902 the figure had swollen to 
 495,000. The meat imports shows a far more remarkable 
 increase, rising from 2j to 20 million cwt. within the same 
 period. Thus the abandonment of agriculture forces England, 
 who twenty years ago was already spending ,146,000,000 upon 
 her food supply, to spend ^214,000,000 to-day. Compare this 
 state of affairs with that of France, who, to-day, pays nothing 
 to the foreigner for provisions, and who in addition finds a 
 market abroad for the surplus of her own food stuffs, 
 
 IQO 
 
The Present Condition of Agriculture 
 
 European powers should be anxious that no 
 similar peril should threaten them. 
 
 For this reason it is that they are turning 
 their attention towards agriculture, and en- 
 couraging it with subventions and all kinds of 
 help. It has come to seem in their eyes an 
 essential element of national defence, indis- 
 pensable for the nourishment of the great 
 isolated camp into which every nation is trans- 
 formed in time of war. They remember, too, 
 that the rural classes provide them with the best 
 stuff for their armies, the sturdiest and steadiest, 
 and that when this great reservoir of strength 
 runs dry, the military status of the nation sinks 
 accordingly. 
 
 These ideas are now beginning to make way 
 in England also. The great economic revolution 
 now being advocated by Mr. Chamberlain, with 
 such power and such tenacity, is nothing but a 
 movement back to the land back to that agri- 
 culture which England has neglected so much for 
 half a century. Of course, the great reformer 
 does not proclaim this truth dogmatically, for fear 
 of alarming the manufacturers and the orthodox 
 economists ; he does not propose to revive and 
 reinstate English agriculture as it once was. 
 He feels, doubtless, that this task would be too 
 difficult that it is now too late to attempt it. 
 
 191 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 He has conceived another ideathat of 
 dividing up the great British Empire into two 
 sections, devoted almost exclusively, the one to 
 agriculture, the other to the manufacturing 
 industries. With this as his starting-point, he 
 speaks as follows to the great agricultural 
 colonies, Canada, Australia, and the African 
 possessions. " Take warning," he says to them, 
 " from the lessons that have cost us so dear, and 
 instead of applying your energies to the manu- 
 facturing industries which are now plethoric, 
 devote them altogether to agriculture. Here 
 you will have a fertile field all to yourselves, 
 which will ensure you wealth and security. If 
 you will do this, I promise you for your natural 
 products the most magnificent market in the 
 world the British market, with its immense 
 working-class population, representing an inex- 
 haustible reservoir of consumers. In return for 
 the provisions we shall buy from you, we shall 
 send you our manufactures; the United King- 
 dom will be the workshop, you will be the 
 harvest-field, the orchard ; the balance will thus 
 be restored between our supply and demand, 
 and the British Empire will constitute a perfect 
 model of the true division of labour and human 
 activities." 
 
 This grandiose project is, in truth, far from 
 192 
 
The Present Condition of Agriculture 
 
 being perfect, and it will in its application knock 
 up against innumerable difficulties,* but one 
 cannot deny the rigour of its logic or the justice 
 of the standpoint on which it rests. Mr. 
 Chamberlain's chief merit will lie in his having 
 recognized from afar the rocks upon which the 
 English ship of state may founder, and in his 
 having said out loud what others were content 
 to think. He entertains no illusions as to what 
 used to be proudly designated the industrial 
 supremacy of England. 
 
 That which gives force to Mr. Chamberlain's 
 movement is the promise he holds out of 
 an enlarged British market in substitution for 
 the foreign markets which British commerce has 
 been losing. What a sense of satisfaction the 
 
 * The weak point in the system is easily discerned. It is 
 based upon an illusion, the belief, that is, that the great British 
 colonies Canada, for instance will come to a stop in their 
 economic development and give up their industries, resigning 
 themselves to dependence upon the mother-country for manu- 
 factured goods. It is very probable that they will do just the 
 opposite, and, walled in behind their protective tariffs, develop 
 their national industries better than ever. There are signs of 
 this already. A group of Canadian manufacturers have just 
 formed themselves into a syndicate for establishing a tinware 
 manufactory, and, in order to compete successfully with Wales, 
 which hitherto has supplied Canada with tinware, they have 
 petitioned their Government for a protective duty, and have 
 been promised it. This will administer a mortal blow to the 
 tinware industry in Wales. 
 
 193 o 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 Britisher would have in boasting, " Hence- 
 forward, we also are self-sufficing, and can do 
 without any one else. We have an empire vast 
 enough to supply the customers we need, and 
 our workmen need have no fear in future of 
 being unemployed. There are more than enough 
 English consumers in the world to absorb all our 
 national output" 
 
 The English agriculturists, for their part, so 
 long neglected and despised, have begun to hope 
 that they also will share in the great return to 
 agricultural production, and that, thanks to 
 better prices, they will be able to resume 
 branches of cultivation which they have had to 
 forsake ; they are saying to themselves that the 
 manual labour they require may now be forth- 
 coming, and that workmen will be only too glad 
 to seek in the country an existence less wretched 
 than has been their lot in the towns. 
 
 If we turn our eyes now towards Germany, 
 we shall see that here, also, despite the in- 
 dustrial fever which she has been going through 
 during the last twenty years, there is a strong 
 movement in progress towards the land. There 
 are superficial observers who make light of the 
 movement, and declare that it is the outcome 
 merely of a coalition of great landlords anxious 
 to raise the value of their estates. But if that 
 
 194 
 
The Present Condition of Agriculture 
 
 were so, the German agrarian league would not 
 be so formidable, and we should be at a loss to 
 understand its enormous influence over public 
 opinion and with the authorities. This influence 
 is to be explained only by the existence of a 
 subterranean current carrying the idea into the 
 lowest strata of the population. The Germans 
 are a practical race, like the English, and the 
 immense industrial triumphs they have achieved 
 during the last thirty years have not turned 
 their heads to such a degree as to have made 
 them lose touch with reality. They have been 
 warned by unmistakable symptoms that they 
 have reached the zenith of their industrial 
 prosperity, as Great Britain reached hers long 
 ago, and they are beginning to have a care for 
 the future. 
 
 After an era of unequalled prosperity, which 
 lasted until 1901, they found themselves thrown 
 by the excess of their output into a crisis which 
 very nearly ended in a veritable catastrophe. 
 They recovered from this by reason of their 
 energy and discipline, and because the industries 
 which were in danger did not try to get the 
 better of each other, as happens at such times 
 in other countries; on the contrary, they stood 
 by each other, and came to mutual understand- 
 ings, with a view to saving the situation and to 
 
 195 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 finding outlets for their surplus production 
 abroad. 
 
 The immediate peril has passed, but there 
 is a general impression that it may recur, and 
 that, sooner or later, Germany may find herself 
 in the same situation as Great Britain that 
 she is destined to see her foreign markets 
 narrowed, whilst her production continues to 
 grow ; and she cannot, like Great Britain, find 
 fresh markets in her colonies, for her policy 
 has 3 been to have as few as possible, and to 
 content herself with exploiting those of other 
 nations. 
 
 What, then, will she do with her enormous 
 industrial population? There is always the 
 resource of emigration, and already there is 
 an unceasing stream of emigrants from Germany 
 which serve as a safety-valve. But emigration 
 has its undesirable side as a remedy, and all 
 the great European nations, which hitherto 
 have regarded it with so much approval, should 
 begin soon to realize that it is all to the advan- 
 tage of the country into which it flows. It is 
 the emigrants from Great Britain, and Germany, 
 and Italy, who have made the United States, 
 as they are now making Brazil, and Mexico, 
 and the Argentine Republic. It is they who 
 have enabled the budding industries of those 
 
 196 
 
The Present Condition of Agriculture 
 
 lands to enter into competition with the indus- 
 tries of the countries they quitted. So it must 
 always be. 
 
 The great tide of emigration, however, to- 
 wards the New World is beginning to weaken, 
 and these regions will not suffice permanently 
 for the surplus populations of Europe,* for 
 the simple reason that there are limits to space 
 and the best places are getting filled. From 
 the force of circumstances, therefore, Germany 
 is being impelled into this return to agriculture. 
 The German Government, which has done so 
 much for manufacturers, realizes that it has 
 gone too far in this direction, and must " back " 
 a little. The new treaties of commerce which 
 it has just negociated with the principal Euro- 
 pean nations, are a triumph for agriculture and 
 for the agrarian party; their distinguishing 
 mark is the increase in the import duty upon 
 corn, and upon the chief agricultural products. 
 
 In the first discussions of this matter in the 
 Reichstag, the German Government defined its 
 position quite distinctly, and announced that it 
 
 * The Austrian Consul- General in New York records that, 
 in spite of the great reduction in the rates of passage, the 
 number of European immigrants into the States sank from 
 568,000 in 1903, between April i and July 29, to 427,000 in 1904 
 within the same period ; while the number of European emi- 
 grants returning home from America increases every year. 
 
 197 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 deliberately proposed to favour agriculture. 
 The Minister of Finance, Baron de Richthoffer, 
 recalled to the House the fact that the Chambers 
 of Agriculture had come unanimously to the 
 conclusion that agriculture must be protected by 
 import duties in the interest of the small farmers. 
 He pointed out that while trade and industry 
 had developed of recent years, the number of 
 agricultural labourers had decreased by 400,000 
 in a single decade. The object, then, of the 
 new custom-house policy of Germany, is simply 
 the furtherance of the movement back to the 
 land. 
 
 What we have said of Germany may be 
 said also of Italy. Italy has achieved a won- 
 derful industrial development during the last 
 few years, but she is not blind to the future, 
 and she recognizes the difficulty she will have 
 presently in finding customers for her output, 
 if she does not put a curb on production. 
 Accordingly, she has been devoting herself 
 whole-heartedly to the development of her 
 agriculture. She is seeking to become the 
 garden of Europe, and no nation has organized 
 its exports of agricultural produce with so much 
 care and acumen. In this respect we should 
 do well to take her for our model* 
 
 * The Italian Office of Statistics has published a study of 
 198 
 
The Present Condition of Agriculture 
 
 It is due to Italian statesmen, most of whom 
 are excellent men of business, to record that 
 they never lose sight of the needs of rural Italy, 
 and that they are making continuous efforts to 
 make the most of it. Their efforts are power- 
 fully seconded by King Victor Emanuel III., who 
 has shown himself from the first a fervent 
 believer in agriculture. He has recently given 
 very striking proof of his sentiments by initi- 
 ating a very excellent measure the creation of 
 an international institute for the study of matters 
 of interest to agriculturists. It is too soon to 
 predict what will be the outcome of this new 
 institution, but there can be no doubt of its 
 extreme value to agriculturists. It will be a 
 meeting-place for the agrarian parties of all 
 nations, and in particular for that of Italy, 
 which counts among its numbers so many men 
 of great worth. 
 
 The lack of equilibrium between manufac- 
 tures and agriculture is an evil, it should be 
 noted, peculiar so far to Europe. The New 
 World does not yet suffer from this malady, 
 
 the progress of agriculture in the country during the years 
 1883-1903. The average annual output of large produce 
 (cereals, wine, potatoes, wood, cattle, etc.) during these twenty 
 years was 4,910,000,000 liras ; while fruit, vegetables, fowls, 
 eggs, and flowers amounted to 150,000,000 more. 
 
 199 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 and if it takes warning from our example, it 
 may escape it altogether. Agriculture is still 
 the great industry of Canada, Mexico, Brazil, 
 and the Argentine Republic countries com- 
 prising immense expanses of rich land. Their 
 manufactures have, as yet, plenty of margin, 
 and are not in danger of producing more than 
 is wanted. 
 
 The United States, at first sight, seem in 
 even greater danger than the European nations, 
 so greatly does their industrial production 
 exceed their own demands, and they do things 
 with such a rush that it seems impossible for 
 them to pull up short. But if we look a little 
 more closely into their condition, we are soon 
 reassured as far as they are concerned ; they 
 may succeed in ruining all the rest of the world, 
 they can never ruin themselves, because they 
 can always fall back upon agriculture, which 
 they have been careful, unlike Great Britain, 
 not to sacrifice to manufactures. They have 
 had the wisdom to keep the two forms of in- 
 dustry abreast and to neglect neither. Hence 
 theirs is now, with France and Russia, one of 
 the three countries capable of adapting them- 
 selves to present circumstances, and of weather- 
 ing the economic revolution which menaces all 
 the others. 
 
 200 
 
The Present Condition of Agriculture 
 
 This extraordinary energy could not have 
 been better guided than it has been. Their 
 greatest efforts have been to turn their soil to 
 account and develop their agriculture, in the 
 consciousness that therein lay the inexhaustible 
 source of their wealth and the solid buttress 
 of their well-being. 
 
 Their progress was so extraordinarily rapid 
 that it really seemed as though they would 
 overwhelm the whole world with their produce, 
 but Europe took fright, and raised a custom- 
 house barrier which served to stem the tide 
 of invasion. 
 
 The Americans saw the situation at once, 
 and raised no objections. Instead, with the 
 rapidity of thought and deed which characterize 
 them, they changed their weapon and, allowing 
 their agricultural ambitions to lie dormant for 
 a while, they threw themselves into the manu- 
 facturing industry. We have already told how 
 in less than a quarter of a century the United 
 States, from being dependent upon Europe 
 for manufactured goods, first became self-suffic- 
 ing in this field, and then became one of the 
 most powerful and formidable exporters ; its 
 commercial balance being actually higher than 
 that of any other nation. 
 
 At the present moment it looks as though 
 20 1 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 nothing could stop their progress. They are 
 rushing through space like a cannon-ball. Their 
 industrial ambitions are beginning to arouse 
 everywhere the same kind of alarm as was 
 evoked formerly by their agriculture, and there 
 seems little doubt that an era of difficulties will 
 begin for them. 
 
 Their ingenious method of overcoming the 
 custom-house barrier raised against them by 
 protectionist countries, their trust system, is 
 beginning to fail of its purpose; Germany has 
 retaliated with cartels, which are nothing but 
 anti-trusts; Canada, at once more logical and 
 more courageous, has opposed them with 
 differential duties corresponding to the advan- 
 tages enjoyed by the trusts, and it is to be 
 foreseen that the other countries will have 
 recourse to similar methods in self-protection. 
 The Yankees, with their keen scent, have 
 become aware of the storm threatening them 
 from the European side, and by way of pre- 
 paration for it have descended upon Asia, where 
 they have already taken root, and where they 
 hope to find an immense market so soon as 
 the Panama Canal shall have made communi- 
 cation possible with all parts of the great 
 Republic. 
 
 But here they are going to knock up against 
 202 
 
The Present Condition of Agriculture 
 
 Great Britain, Germany, and, above all, Japan, 
 whom now nothing will check in that expansion 
 which the United States themselves viewed 
 with so much favour. What will come of this 
 conflict of insatiable ambitions? Shall we in 
 the midst of our civilization see this struggle 
 for commercial supremacy degenerate into a 
 sanguinary war ? Though it may seem unlikely, 
 it is not impossible. 
 
 Meanwhile, the possibilities of agriculture 
 in the States are infinite we are only at the 
 beginning of their development. Their produc- 
 tion of corn, for instance, concentrated to-day 
 in the north-west, can be extended without 
 measure towards the south-west, the States 
 of Arkansas, Oklahama, and Texas, where there 
 are still 130 millions of acres available for 
 cultivation. There is Nebraska, too, which is 
 marvellously fertile. 
 
 The day approaches when the United States 
 will reap the recompense of the efforts and 
 the sacrifices they have made for the mainte- 
 nance of their agricultural strength. They will 
 be able to brave the tempest which threatens 
 their manufactures, that coalition against them 
 of all the other nations. They have but to 
 hark back to agriculture a less fruitful industry 
 but more safe and more lasting. They can, in 
 
 203 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 consequence, face the future with more serenity 
 than any other country, provided only they 
 are not intoxicated by success and do not want 
 to dominate the world. Imperialism would 
 be just as dangerous for them as it is for 
 Great Britain, or the Pan-Germanic movement 
 is for Germany. 
 
 204 
 
THE COLONIES. 
 AGRARIAN SOCIALISM 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE COLONIES. AGRARIAN SOCIALISM 
 I 
 
 A FTER the United States, France certainly 
 ** takes the first place among the great 
 industrial nations in regard to her economic 
 resources and the balance struck between agri- 
 culture and manufacture. Like the United 
 States, she is able, whenever she likes, when- 
 ever she feels the need, to foster agriculture 
 by moderating a little her industrial activity. 
 She has at hand everything she can need for 
 that a most fertile soil and a climate adaptable 
 to every variety of growth ; she can be at will 
 a field or a garden; she can transform or 
 multiply all her agricultural products in accord- 
 ance with the demand from within or from 
 without. 
 
 At first sight it may seem that she is at 
 a disadvantage as compared with the United 
 States or Canada, in that her soil is fully 
 occupied and has been tilled for centuries ; but 
 
 207 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 although she undoubtedly lacks the endless 
 virgin prairies of the New World, she has 
 many regions still lying uncultivated, landes 
 and poor grazing grounds, to the extent of 
 many millions of acres, the greater part of 
 which might still be turned to account. As a 
 matter of fact, some small section is reclaimed 
 every year, though not more than enough to 
 balance those other bits of land, far from the 
 centres of population, which are annually re- 
 afforested because their owners can find no 
 occupants for them, and can devote them to no 
 more profitable use. 
 
 The return to the land will have the effect 
 of gradually driving back the army of foreign 
 labourers which has been invading the country 
 in ever-growing numbers for the last twenty 
 years, and which swarms annually over the 
 dfyartements du Nord, Centre, and Midi, in 
 response to the regular demand for manual 
 labour. Without them, as things stand, certain 
 branches of our agriculture would come to an 
 end, and they prevented our agricultural crisis 
 from ending in disaster. 
 
 This question of the foreign labourers has 
 been thoroughly gone into and examined for 
 the dtpartement of Seine-et-Marne, by two dis- 
 tinguished experts, M. Jules B6nard and M. 
 
 208 
 
The Colonies* Agrarian Socialism 
 
 Brandin, both of them members of the National 
 Society of Agriculture. Both of them instituted 
 a minute inquiry into the subject, the former in 
 the district of Meaux, the latter in that of Melun. 
 
 These investigations followed upon a great 
 inquiry instituted by the Belgian Government, 
 which established the fact that more than 
 45,000 Belgians were employed on agricultural 
 work in France, either permanently or tempo- 
 rarily. Besides the Belgians, we have labourers 
 from Germany and Italy, and elsewhere. In 
 the Meaux district alone, M. B6nard found that 
 more than 4000 foreigners were employed tem- 
 porarily every year. In the Melun district, 
 according to M. Brandin's estimate, about 2500 
 Belgians and Swiss find occupation about 1200 
 all the year round; the rest for six months in 
 the year. 
 
 On the day when French workmen decide 
 to take the place of these foreigners, a long 
 step will be taken towards ameliorating the 
 condition of our labour-market, and settling 
 the question of the unemployed. 
 
 If it be objected that, generally speaking, 
 the labour in question is intermittent and sup- 
 plementary and inadequate as a livelihood, we 
 may reply that this is not less the case for 
 the foreigners who undertake it, and that they 
 
 209 p 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 have other occupations at home, such as our own 
 people might also find for themselves. Most 
 of them, as a matter of fact, have small holdings 
 in their own country which help to keep their 
 families, thus realizing the ideal we dream of 
 for the French labourer the life of a peasant- 
 farmer, getting all he can out of his own land, 
 and adding to his income by working also for 
 others. 
 
 There is, therefore, no doubt, whatever may 
 be said to the contrary, that there are great 
 openings for labour in our agricultural regions 
 openings that our French labourers can avail 
 themselves of whenever they please, whenever, 
 that means to say, they come to realize the 
 advantages of life in the country. 
 
 Moreover, it should be very easy to extend 
 very widely the field of activities for French 
 agricultural labourers by developing those 
 branches of agriculture which would give them 
 most occupation, such as cereals, dairy pro- 
 duce, cheese, vegetables, fruit, and flowers. 
 There is no reason why France should not 
 become a great market-garden; her produce 
 would be in request all over the world, ii 
 only she knew how to deal with her clientele. 
 
 210 
 
The Colonies* Agrarian Socialism 
 
 II 
 
 But as we have said, the evolution to be 
 accomplished should go beyond the agricultural 
 labourer ; for the return to the land to be 
 realized thoroughly and adequately, the move- 
 ment should embrace a portion also of the 
 bourgeoisie and those small traders who are in 
 so unhappy a condition, and who have such a 
 blue look-out for the future. 
 
 There are any number of large landowners 
 who would be only too happy to get rid of 
 part of their properties in small allotments; if 
 they are not cutting up their properties now, 
 it is simply because they cannot find buyers 
 even at the very lowest prices. 
 
 But we are not restricted now to our own 
 land of France. We also, like Great Britain 
 and the United States, have immense expanses 
 waiting to be exploited. Thanks to the wisdom 
 and foresight of Jules Ferry and others of our 
 statesmen, we have at our disposal a vast 
 empire extending the world over, and com- 
 prising every variety of agricultural produce 
 that can be imagined. 
 
 Until now we have done little more than 
 explore this new world, which at first was a 
 
 211 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 matter of wonder to us, and almost of alarm. 
 Now that we are beginning to know it better, 
 we regard it more confidently. Confidence will 
 soon pass to enthusiasm, and we shall be able 
 to take in the wonderful perspectives of the 
 future opening out before us. 
 
 Then, at last, the youth of the country will 
 turn its eyes towards this promised land which 
 calls them to a larger life a life exacting more 
 intellect and energy, and offering greater profits 
 and rewards, and the dull daily round of the 
 existence of to-day will seem wretched by com- 
 parison. The true French character, instinct 
 with courage and daring initiative, will re- 
 awaken from its long slumber, and shake off 
 the dull routine that has been masking the 
 genius of our race. 
 
 For experience has spoken, and has given 
 striking proofs that the Frenchman is an ex- 
 cellent colonist, provided he is left a little to 
 himself and not hampered by officialdom; not 
 only is he full of initiative, he shows himself 
 also very practical and resourceful, adapting 
 himself to his surroundings and making them 
 part of himself. In France he is unrecognizable, 
 because he is under an extinguisher; abroad 
 he is a different man. 
 
 When he decides to go to the colonies, he will 
 212 
 
The Colonies. Agrarian Socialism 
 
 turn them into a new and prosperous France. 
 But how are we to get him to make up his 
 mind to go ; how are we to overcome his apathy, 
 his blind devotion to his corner-seat by the 
 family fireside ; how, above all, are we to reason 
 with that deplorable attitude of so many fathers 
 and mothers, who imagine that the end of the 
 world has come when they see their son embark 
 upon the steamer? 
 
 Assuredly, the revolution will not be accom- 
 plished in a day. The settled habits and customs 
 of a race are not to be changed in a moment. 
 However, the change will come about more 
 speedily, I think, than is generally imagined. 
 
 Ill 
 
 To make the coming generation see things 
 in this light, all we have to do is to change our 
 methods of educating them. We have seden- 
 taries enough, we want men of action now. Let 
 us train our young for the battle of life, and 
 equip them with modern arms. Let us try to 
 give to the mass of Frenchmen, rich or poor, 
 some knowledge of foreign languages : it is the 
 best implement we can place in their hands. 
 With that acquisition, a man cannot starve. Let 
 
 213 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 us add to that a thorough study of geography- 
 geography made attractive as it is by modern 
 methods. Let us give them instead of empty 
 novels, too often corrupt, records of those 
 voyages and travels which call out a man's 
 noblest aspirations and appeal to his highest 
 qualities. 
 
 Thus shall we give a new character to a 
 section of our French youth, freeing it from 
 the atmosphere in which it has been sickly and 
 emasculate. Large views will begin to be held, 
 we shall grow less envious and petty. Thus the 
 new colonial spirit will have an ameliorating 
 effect upon political and social habits. The 
 colonies will serve as a safety-valve for those 
 ardent and generous natures that grow em- 
 bittered in the narrowness of our present 
 existence, because they have no opening for 
 their energies, and our society is to them like 
 a mouldy dungeon. 
 
 The transplanting of Frenchmen in the 
 colonies will have many other advantages 
 which must be placed to its credit. We were 
 deploring a while ago the falling off in the 
 French birth-rate a matter for so much real 
 anxiety ; while all the other nations grow and 
 multiply, we remain stationary and allow the 
 "big battalions" all around us to wax bigger 
 
 214 
 
The Colonies* Agrarian Socialism 
 
 and bigger. If we continue to remain stationary 
 in this way, we run the risk of becoming an easy 
 prey for neighbours who may be tempted to 
 aggrandize themselves at our expense. It may 
 be said that this is an improbable hypothesis, 
 but it were wise to be on our guard. 
 
 How are we to cope with this danger, how 
 make Frenchmen realize the all-importance of 
 larger families ? To answer this question we 
 must ask another, and inquire why it is at 
 present they are so little prolific ? Now, there 
 is no doubt that the chief reason is the French- 
 man's excessive regard for his offspring, his 
 anxiety for its welfare, and his fears lest it 
 should not be adequately provided for. 
 
 Provident and economical, the Frenchman 
 looks ahead, calculating what provision he can 
 make for his children and considering what 
 opening he can find for them. The more 
 crowded the professions become, the more 
 difficult it grows to earn a livelihood, the 
 more nervous he becomes. The advent of 
 each child grows to be a source of trouble and 
 anxiety instead of joy. The result is that he 
 refrains from having many children. 
 
 How different would be his whole attitude 
 if he could say to himself, " The world is wide, 
 and there is room for every one with brain and 
 
 215 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 musclethat in our colonies there will always 
 be a sure refuge for Frenchmen in need of one, 
 and posts better than any that could be hoped 
 for here at home." The day when this notion 
 will have penetrated into the heads of our 
 people, they will cease to regard children as 
 such serious burdens and will adopt the view 
 of the small farmer, who is dependent on his 
 family for manual labour, and welcomes each 
 new child as a gift from God. 
 
 The example our colonies have set us in this 
 matter already should fire us with the spirit of 
 emulation. It is a well-known fact that the 
 French race becomes very prolific as soon as it 
 is transplanted in new countries, where it feels 
 that it has breathing-space. Have we not seen 
 in Canada a race of three million Frenchmen 
 spring from a root of only sixty thousand ? 
 
 In Algeria and Tunis, in the same way, the 
 birth-rate, which in France is 29 per 1000, 
 rises to as much as 36 per 1000 as high as in 
 Germany, higher than in England. It is note- 
 worthy, too, that in France the largest families 
 are to be found in those parts which send out 
 most emigrants Brittany, for instance, and the 
 Basque country, where the births but fill the 
 gaps caused by the emigration. 
 
 But if these aspirations are to bear fruit, we 
 216 
 
The Colonies* Agrarian Socialism 
 
 must see to it that we turn our colonies to the 
 fullest account, so organizing the administration 
 of them as to ensure our colonists openings 
 that shall prove both lucrative and durable. 
 We have seen too many colonists return to 
 France downcast and disillusioned, and more 
 penniless than when they started. Their own 
 fault, it may be said; they went out under 
 unfavourable conditions, without making any 
 preparations, without any special qualifications 
 and without capital. Possibly, but that is just 
 what must be prevented in future, and the way 
 to prevent it is simply to organize our coloniza- 
 tion instead of leaving it to chance. We ought 
 long ago to have established powerful colonizing 
 agencies for this purpose. 
 
 IV 
 
 The Government should take in hand itself 
 the establishment of these agencies. It has a 
 thousand and one means at its disposal for 
 turning capital into the direction of the colonies, 
 and this would be good business, as well as a 
 patriotic proceeding : let the Government regard 
 it as their duty, dictated by the urgent needs of 
 our splendid colonies, whose very existence and 
 
 217 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 entire future is at stake. How are we to explain 
 the fact that Algeria attracts so few Frenchmen, 
 while it exercises so powerful a fascination upon 
 foreigners ? 
 
 M. Jonnart, who knows Algeria through and 
 through and has the colony's interests at heart, 
 looks forward with anxiety to the future; he 
 notes the alarming fact that while the solid mass 
 of the native population remains unchanged 
 and unchangeable, the foreign flood is swelling 
 steadily and the French element makes little or 
 no advance ; and he fears the advent of a day 
 when we shall be submerged, and France shall 
 lose the precious possession it took her a 
 century to win. 
 
 However, he has set himself to the task 
 of rendering such an eventuality impossible, 
 setting about it in a thoroughly practical spirit 
 and with an apostolic zeal which tends to inspire 
 universal confidence. He realizes that speeches 
 and lectures and fair promises are not enough 
 to induce large masses of his countrymen to 
 cross the Mediterranean and seek their fortune 
 in Algeria. To induce them to do so, they must 
 be offered some sort of guarantee of success. 
 To this end our Governor-General has drawn 
 up a complete plan of colonization, carefully 
 thought out, and available for study by any one 
 
 218 
 
The Colonies* Agrarian Socialism 
 
 who cares to examine it in detail. It has been 
 published under the title of the " Colonization of 
 Algeria." From its pages you may learn where 
 you had better pitch your tent or build your 
 house. It supplies the most detailed informa- 
 tion as to the locality of the principal centres, 
 their climate, height above the level of the sea, 
 the number and extent of the available grants 
 of land, free or purchaseable, as to the kind of 
 produce that can be carried on and as to the 
 plant or implements required for them, as to the 
 trades which thrive there, as to the population, 
 methods of transport, etc., etc. Every centre 
 has its special chart, from which an idea can be 
 got of the topography of the region. Finally, 
 it announces that lands conceded to new 
 colonists are exempt from taxation for ten 
 years, that departmental agricultural experts 
 will be at hand to give them useful hints and 
 information, and that on arriving they may 
 obtain help and advice from the adminstra- 
 tion of the commune. This is one of the best 
 provisions of all. The paternal guardianship to 
 be exercised by the administration will do more 
 to reassure them than all the rest. 
 
 M. Jonnart is at pains, moreover, to save 
 them from injurious delusions and to warn them 
 of the conditions essential to success. He 
 
 219 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 insists upon the need of a practical acquaintance 
 with agriculture and of the possession of some 
 small means 5000 francs at least. He advises 
 would-be colonists to begin by educating them- 
 selves for their new career by taking service 
 for the first twelve months with some one already 
 settled in the colony on a large scale, so as 
 to familiarize themselves with the methods in 
 vogue. 
 
 In this way it is that M. Jonnart justifies 
 by chapter and verse the assertion he places 
 at the beginning of his book, and which sums 
 up its contents: "Algeria," he says, "offers 
 special advantages to our home agriculturists, 
 at a loss for adequate holdings. For the same 
 price, and without extra trouble, they can secure 
 in Algeria much larger properties, destined in 
 all probability to become gradually more valuable 
 and bringing in, if competently managed, larger 
 
 revenues." 
 
 We feel justified now in affirming, after this 
 long and careful inquiry into the facts, that the 
 return to the land is in accordance with the 
 nature of things, and in the interest of all 
 classes of the community, and also of the 
 
 22C 
 
The Colonies* Agrarian Socialism 
 
 Government, for its tendency is to maintain the 
 equilibrium of the country, both socially and 
 politically; it serves to protect us from the 
 troubles which result from the too exclusive 
 development of manufacture. 
 
 There is, however, another obstacle in its 
 way, a new obstacle to which a passing reference 
 has been already made, but to which we must 
 now return I refer to the movement of 
 Agrarian Socialism, which has assumed such 
 serious proportions of late, and has begun to 
 alarm all those whose business it is to look 
 ahead. 
 
 We are obliged to admit that the appre- 
 hensions aroused are not without ground, and 
 that this movement, which has now been in 
 progress in France for some years, would be 
 calculated to frustrate all efforts to bring capital 
 and labour back to the land, if it were to maintain 
 its present advance. 
 
 There is no doubt that under the influence 
 of the revolutionary party a subterranean work 
 is now in progress which tends to undermine 
 the rights of property and to lead the rural 
 masses, without their suspecting it, towards the 
 substitution of collective property for private 
 property. The leaders of the party, who for 
 a long time had restricted their energies to the 
 
 221 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 towns, where they found a soil better fitted for 
 their purpose and an army easier to mobilize, 
 have at last realized that all their efforts 
 shattered themselves against the wall of granite 
 presented by the democracy of the country 
 districts, lovers of order more than of liberty. 
 This fact once noted, they began at once to 
 lay siege, with rare patience and cunning 
 strategy, to this rural stronghold. Their plan, 
 now well known, has been to seize hold of the 
 peasant by his strongest feelings, and to make 
 use of his love for the land to turn him against 
 the present order of things. These new-style 
 Socialists profess to have the greatest respect 
 for property, more respect than the State, which 
 apportions the soil among a certain number of 
 privileged individuals instead of bestowing it 
 generously upon all those who have arms to 
 labour upon it and turn it to account ; they 
 declare that it is not enough to make property 
 accessible to all that it must belong to all that 
 every Frenchman who so wishes may own his 
 share of the land. 
 
 Starting from this point, he has a different 
 tale to tell and different promises to hold out 
 to each of the various classes of agriculturists. 
 To the farmer, he exclaims : " Is it not iniquitous 
 that you should sweat and toil for the benefit 
 
 222 
 
The Colonies. Agrarian Socialism 
 
 of a landlord who merely condescends to^ be 
 born so as to enjoy the right of living upon you 
 and spending the fruits of your labour upon 
 his luxurious comforts and idle pleasures?" 
 What is the soil in itself? nothing, absolutely 
 nothing, until man's labour turns it to account. 
 Labour, then, is everything, and alone has a 
 right to reward. The rights of property, if such 
 there be, belong to him who tills the soil, and 
 the triumph of Socialism will mean nothing else 
 than the triumph of the farmer placed by law 
 in possession of the land. 
 
 After the farmer, the' mttayer. Here he is 
 on more difficult ground, and it was long 
 believed that this essentially democratic institu- 
 tion would victoriously withstand the assaults 
 of the revolutionary propaganda ; it is, in fact, 
 based upon an intimate co-operation of capital 
 and labour, on that very participation of labour 
 in the profits of capital which the Socialists 
 themselves used to put forward as the most 
 practical solution of the social problem. Despite 
 the anathemas heaped upon mttayage by certain 
 economists, this system has worked out as one 
 of the best methods of reconciling all interests. 
 Its success during the agricultural crisis was 
 so great that the majority of foreign nations 
 now consider it as a model to be imitated 
 
 223 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 Its merits, however, are now being questioned 
 by the Collectivist propagandists, who are 
 tackling the mttayers even more strenuously 
 than they tackled the farmers. In order to get 
 hold of him they make use of an argument which 
 is easily enough grasped by simple minds with 
 but ]a rudimentary notion of logic ; they go first 
 for the old-established metayers, who have been 
 at work on their particular holding, fathers and 
 sons, for generations back, and they say : How 
 can you be content to be merely a profit-sharer 
 in a work which is in reality your own, no 
 one's but yours ? This soil which you cultivate 
 is what you and your ancestors have made it; 
 you have put your brain and muscle into it, and 
 it is to you alone it should belong. As for your 
 landlord, he and his have been paid for their 
 interest in the land long since, and you owe 
 him nothing more ; we shall be giving you no 
 more than your just rights when we put you 
 in his place, when the day of revolution arrives, 
 and if you wish it that day may be to-morrow. 
 
 A conquest even more difficult than that of 
 the mftayer is that of these small landowners, 
 who have always been regarded as the strongest 
 rampart of the rights of property, and who 
 have always been steadfastly opposed to revo- 
 lutionary doctrines; they cling passionately to 
 
 224 
 
The Colonies* Agrarian Socialism 
 
 their small slips of territory, and they have 
 always held the Socialists in horror. The latter, 
 however, have not been afraid to storm this 
 strong barricade. As the small landowner has 
 generally farmed his own land, there is not 
 much difficulty in making him accept the prin- 
 ciple that the soil belongs to him who cultivates 
 it. This principle advanced successfully, they 
 proceed to demonstrate its logical consequences 
 in a way that dazzles and fascinates their victim's 
 envious eyes : they point to the beautiful vast 
 domains stretching out their opulence all round 
 him, and furnishing forth luxury for the rich 
 landlords residing in the cities. As these idlers 
 will not cultivate their lands themselves, let 
 them cede them to men who could and would. 
 
 The voice of the serpent evokes feelings of 
 envy, and a number of men who would never 
 dream of abstracting a sou from their neigh- 
 bour's pocket, find themselves turning their eyes 
 greedily towards the prey marked down for 
 them, and already capturing it in thought. 
 
 Thus it is that Agrarian Socialism is being 
 surreptitiously introduced into our rural dis- 
 tricts, and what is most noteworthy in the 
 matter is the fact that it began in the strata 
 which seemed most calculated to offer it most 
 resistance. The agricultural labourers have been 
 
 225 Q 
 
 RS1TY 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 left on one side contemptuously. These tactics 
 are cleverer than they may seem. The Socialist 
 leaders know that when they have carried the 
 strong positions, they will have no difficulty 
 with the rest. The workmen will fall readily 
 enough into their hands. 
 
 For this they had only to await the right 
 occasion, which was sure to come in time. 
 The crisis in the vine-culture supplied it. The 
 bad season in the Midi plunged the unfortunate 
 cultivators into such distress that many of them 
 had to reduce the amount of labour they em- 
 ployed, or else the price paid for it. They did 
 not do this willingly but under the stress of 
 absolute necessity. 
 
 This was the moment chosen by the revolu- 
 tionaries of 1'Herault, 1'Aude and other departe- 
 ments to launch out, and they seized it with 
 an ardour easy to comprehend; on the word 
 of command, issued by the Labour Bureau at 
 Montpellier, all the agricultural labourers in those 
 regions in which discontent had become accen- 
 tuated were at once enrolled and organized for 
 the fight. They were provided with leaders 
 from outside, unconcerned with their interests, 
 more eager for a struggle than for a settlement, 
 and these had formulated claims on their behalf 
 which were of a prohibitive character. Not 
 
 226 
 
The Colonies* Agrarian Socialism 
 
 content with stipulating for the re-establish- 
 ment of their old wages, an increase was de- 
 manded, accompanied by threats of pillage 
 against those who should refuse to come to 
 terms. Simultaneously, the workers' eyes were 
 dazzled with promises of such a division of the 
 land as would end all their troubles. 
 
 The proprietors, half ruined by the crisis, 
 being unable to submit to such conditions, the 
 revolutionary party set about terrorizing them, 
 which was easy enough. The labourers were 
 organized into flying columns, as it were, moving 
 about from one commune to another, sowing 
 terror wherever they went, and calling up 
 visions of a new Jacquerie. Needless to say, 
 the really good labourers who were tempted 
 to resist, realizing the wrong that was being 
 done them, were the first to be set upon and 
 maltreated. 
 
 That is what we have come to in France 
 to-day, and this outline sketch serves to show 
 what progress Agrarian Socialism has made 
 here during the few years that have elapsed 
 since the advent to power of the revolutionary 
 party; it is the all-powerful influence of this 
 party that, by according impunity to the agents 
 of disorder, and by making the organizers of 
 strikes collaborators with the Government, 
 
 227 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 have rendered powerless the defenders of the 
 law. 
 
 There can be little doubt that if such a state 
 of things were to exist for long, the consequences 
 would be disastrous. 
 
 To begin with, it would be a new cause of 
 ruin, and ruin irreparable, for agriculture; the 
 day when the rights of property are seriously 
 shaken, every one will fight shy of it. The 
 security, which was its chief attraction, having 
 gone from it, no one will want to have anything 
 more to do with it. And this will be only 
 natural, for there are no investments more 
 risky than those ventured in the soil. The land 
 is a devouring abyss for capital, and every one 
 except the Socialists realizes] the fact ; if we 
 could add up all the sums that have been 
 swallowed up in French soil in the effort to 
 make of it what it now is all the endless cost 
 of reclaiming and improving and developing- 
 we should be astonished by the immensity of 
 the figure, and if we compared it with the 
 revenue now drawn by the landowners of to- 
 day, we should be obliged to admit that there 
 is no form of property so unremunerative, or the 
 right to which is so well-founded. 
 
 Yet this it is that the revolutionary party 
 wishes to give away for nothing to the cultivators 
 
 228 
 
The Colonies* Agrarian Socialism 
 
 of the soil. It will be sheer confiscation, 
 pure and simple, that is clearly understood: 
 neither the word nor the thing gives our re- 
 formers any cause for alarm. But have they 
 considered what will ensue on the morrow of 
 this great liquidation? Have they asked them- 
 selves what will happen when the new pro- 
 prietors want to dispose of the wealth of acres 
 in their possession? The time will inevitably 
 come when they will ask themselves what their 
 land is worth. A little reflection will tell them 
 that they are not proprietors in any real sense 
 of the word, but only occupants on a precarious 
 tenure at the will and under the direction of 
 the State. 
 
 They will be forced to look forward to a 
 day when they will be unable to go' on culti- 
 vating their land, and when it will pass back 
 to the State out of their hands ; ill-health or 
 other causes may lead to this. After their 
 death, the uncertainty will become worse still ; 
 if they leave no children, all is over and done 
 with, and the fruits of all their labour will fall 
 into the great universal reservoir and pass into 
 alien hands. 
 
 In such a situation it is easy enough to 
 foresee the line that will be taken by the 
 collectivist landowner. He will live from 
 
 229 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 day to day in hand-to-mouth fashion, much 
 like primitive man, doing what he must for 
 his own personal needs and profits, but ab- 
 staining from improvements which do not yield 
 immediate results. 
 
 The obvious outcome" of it all will be a 
 speedily increasing impoverishment of the soil, 
 the decrease of capital invested in agriculture, 
 and a return to pastoral conditions with their 
 attendant poverty and distress. So much for 
 the country. But will the individual be any 
 better off, any more satisfied with his lot? 
 Shall we see the birth of an enthusiasm for 
 the land, a rush for its possession? If this 
 were to be hoped for, there would be some 
 kind of consolation in the thought, but we are 
 absolutely convinced that the eviction of the 
 old proprietors will be the signal for a general 
 stampede of the agricultural population. 
 
 Doubtless, if the holdings were handed over 
 without restriction, once and for all, to destitute 
 members of the proletariat, thus making them 
 as much bond fide proprietors as are the actual 
 owners, applicants would not be wanting, and 
 all hands would be stretched out towards the 
 governmental providence w r hich thus caused 
 heavenly manna to fall down from the skies 
 upon its chosen ones. There would be difficulty, 
 
 230 
 
The Colonies* Agrarian Socialism 
 
 it is true, in satisfying everybody, and those 
 whom it would be necessary to eliminate would 
 soon develop into an army of malcontents, 
 who, in their turn, would set to work at over- 
 turning the new order of things. A fresh 
 revolution would be clamoured for, and would 
 soon have to be forthcoming. A reassuring 
 prospect ! 
 
 But, as a matter of fact, the Collectivist 
 State would not propose to carry their gene- 
 rosity so far; it would propose to reserve 
 entire control over the so-called proprietors 
 of its own making. In short, as I have said 
 already, they would not be in any real sense 
 proprietors at all ; they would not be able to 
 sell or let their land it is doubtful even whether 
 they could bequeath it to their children. 
 
 Under such conditions one asks one's self 
 what temptations there will be in this hybrid 
 system for the would-be agriculturist. French- 
 men are said to be volatile, which is doubtless 
 a calumny ; but if they are not volatile, at least 
 they love their liberty and are not easily induced 
 to forego it. Now, what the Collectivists have 
 to offer the French agriculturist is nothing 
 less than a disguised form of servitude : he 
 would become at once the slave of the soil and 
 of the Government. Once he has accepted this 
 
 231 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 gift from the State, he will be bound to his 
 holding and unable to relinquish it until his 
 master consents to allot him another. He will 
 be condemned all his life to go round and round 
 in the same circle, from which there will be 
 no egress; his land, which he cannot sell or 
 let or give away, will become to him a veri- 
 table shirt of Nessus which he is forbidden to 
 take off. 
 
 Such is the solution put forward by our 
 Collectivists for our problem, such the ground- 
 work upon which they propose to establish the 
 happiness of mankind. If the application of 
 it were not so costly and were not putting back 
 the clock of real progress more than half a 
 century, we should be almost tempted to wish 
 to see the experiment actually made. It would 
 not be of long duration, if we may judge by 
 what we know of the French workman's mind. 
 We have before our eyes an institution which 
 offers a very suggestive comparison that of 
 the workmen's cottages. This, when its methods 
 are fully understood, is destined to transform 
 the artisan's existence and to secure his well- 
 being in the bosom of his family ; in the earlier 
 stages of the organization, the artisan only 
 became owner of his house when he had paid 
 as rent a sum equivalent to the interest upon 
 
 232 
 
The Colonies. Agrarian Socialism 
 
 the capital represented; until then he was not 
 free to sell it. 
 
 This restriction evoked the artisan's distrust 
 and frightened him away. He saw in it the 
 veiled intention of tying him down to his work 
 and of preventing him from changing his resi- 
 dence, or even his method of livelihood, at will ; 
 he could not get over the fact that he could 
 not sell, and the success of the enterprise 
 seemed seriously endangered. 
 
 In order to overcome this feeling, the wise 
 philanthropists' who had the matter in hand did 
 not hesitate to modify their regulations upon this 
 essential point ; they proposed to give the work- 
 man title-deeds to his house which he could cede, 
 if he wished, to another, on condition that the 
 latter should continue to pay the stipulated rent 
 until the interest on the capital had been defrayed. 
 
 If the workman clings thus to his indepen- 
 dence, if they will only consent to become pro- 
 prietors subject to possessing the right to sell 
 in the case of a house which is given them for 
 next to nothing, who will believe that the 
 peasant proprietor will be less tenacious and 
 exacting? The poor specimens who would 
 accept the grant of land offered them upon such 
 a tenure as is contemplated would not be 
 genuine agriculturists. 
 
 233 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 It is all-important that our rural classes 
 should have their eyes opened to the real value 
 of the Collectivists' promises. The best way 
 to achieve this is by forcing these gentlemen 
 to explain clearly how their doctrines are to be 
 applied. We must not let them take refuge in 
 vague formulas, and fine-sounding rhetorical 
 generalizations we must make them show us 
 the works of their reforming machine and set 
 them going for us so that we can study them 
 in their smallest details. Thus pressed, they 
 will show themselves in their true light, and 
 their dupes will see through their game. 
 
 It is impossible that the three million pro- 
 prietors who represent half our agricultural 
 population would not then see already the 
 danger that is threatening them, and would 
 not rise as one man to bar the road against the 
 false prophets who would lead them astray. 
 They will see that on the day when the revo- 
 lutionary party triumphed, their rights to their 
 property would go. It would be the same for 
 all, big and little. When the large properties 
 had been confiscated, it would be very ingenuous 
 to suppose that the small ones would be 
 immune. Even if the State wished to leave 
 them alone, it could not ; those who had not 
 had their share of loot, and who would always 
 
 234 
 
The Colonies* Agrarian Socialism 
 
 be the greater number, would know how to 
 force it to evict a new batch of owners and to 
 give them their places at the banquet. Let 
 the small proprietors reflect well over it all. 
 Their very existence is at stake. 
 
 But in order to cope successfully with 
 Socialism, as I have said, it is not enough to 
 expose its fallacies and dangers; we must, at 
 the same time, disarm the enemies of Society 
 by planning out measures calculated to amelio- 
 rate the condition of our poor and to solve the 
 problem set before us. 
 
 In the chapter on " State Aid " we have set 
 forth some of the principal measures that are 
 called for, but the most important of all, that 
 which is really essential, is the establishment 
 all over the country of the Bien de Famille, which 
 will solve the problem of property in a way 
 which will be at once the most liberal and the 
 most practical. There is no better method 
 of combating the Collectivists' schemes than 
 by confronting collective property with per- 
 sonal property and making personal property 
 accessible to all. 
 
 When this principle has received the sanction 
 of the Government, it will be the duty of all 
 interested in agriculture to help to put it into 
 practice. It will not do to rely solely upon the 
 
 235 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 readiness of the labourer to fall in with it ; he 
 must be educated up to it and helped to profit 
 by it. This should be the work of the syndi- 
 cates, the natural supports of the agricultural 
 world. It will be for them to create associa- 
 tions, after the fashion of those already in exist- 
 ence for the construction of artisans' dwellings, 
 which will enable the would-be proprietors to 
 make all the necessary arrangements that are 
 involved. 
 
 The syndicates undertaking this could 
 achieve another service to the cause of progress, 
 which would contribute in large measure to 
 the social well-being, by enlisting the workers 
 in agricultural associations of another order, 
 which would be empowered to serve as arbiters 
 in cases of dispute. 
 
 There is yet one other thing to be done in the 
 interests of the land. 
 
 We have spoken already of the harm that 
 has been done by the absenteeism of the bour- 
 geois landowners. As long as personal relations 
 existed between the landowners, the farmers 
 and the labourers, as long as they lived the 
 same life, and met sometimes at table, and had 
 opportunities of discussing their affairs amicably 
 together, they all worked together for their 
 common good in "happy family" fashion. 
 
 236 
 
The Colonies. Agrarian Socialism 
 
 But when the bourgeois moved away, often 
 leaving behind him as his representative a hard 
 and tactless agent, seldom returning himself, 
 unless to shut himself up in his villa or chateau, 
 and condescending to take no interest in his 
 neighbours and their affairs, a great change 
 came about. The peasant began to look upon 
 him askance. Then it was that the revolutionary 
 party found its opportunity of beginning its 
 propaganda. There were social gatherings at 
 which their emissaries hob-nobbed with their 
 guileless dupes and, exploiting for all it was 
 worth the haughty indifference of the absentee 
 landlord, succeeded in winning innumerable 
 converts to their ideas. And gradually the 
 bourgeoisie, through its own fault, lost all its 
 influence and popularity. 
 
 Why did it not follow the example of the 
 English aristocracy, which, by dint of energy, 
 generosity, and civic devotion, has maintained 
 its influence over the British democracy ? The 
 peers in England make good their title to all 
 the great privileges they still enjoy by their 
 public spirit and the practical part they take 
 in the affairs of the country ; they remain 
 in such close touch with the working-classes 
 that they have retained their position of 
 authority in the eyes of the nation, and their 
 
 237 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 antecedents are forgotten in gratitude for their 
 good deeds. 
 
 It is still possible for the French bourgeoisie 
 to play a similar part in our national life. It 
 has but to free itself from the spell of cities 
 and to seek to love and understand the country 
 once again. It has but to take the first step 
 for its enemies of to-day to become its friends 
 of to-morrow. 
 
 VI 
 
 We may now sum up, and we hope the 
 reader will sum up with us. We firmly believe 
 that this last cloud which we have observed 
 upon the horizon of the world of agriculture, 
 and which threatened to burst into a storm, 
 ravaging everything and destroying all hopes 
 for the future, will pass away like the others, 
 and that the cultivation of the soil of France 
 will be carried on beneath a radiant sky. The 
 spirit of the French peasant contains treasures 
 of good sense and right thinking, which will 
 strengthen it against the sophisms of the revolu- 
 tionary school and save it from the perilous 
 adventures into which Socialism would tempt it. 
 
 Agriculture, then, is not really in danger, 
 238 
 
The Colonies. Agrarian Socialism 
 
 and may work out its destiny in peace. The 
 return to the land will not be brought about 
 by violent and empirical methods, but scientifi- 
 cally, and by men of good will working in con- 
 cord and unity for the ordering of the products 
 of the nation in harmony and proportion. 
 
 The days are past in which there was no 
 need for thus keeping things under control the 
 days when there was a sort of water-tight parti- 
 tion between all the nations. Nowadays, when 
 all the markets of the world are interwoven 
 and interdependent, their movements are much 
 more complex ; the least mishap in a remote 
 corner of the globe is felt right through to the 
 other side. It is essential that all the cogs of 
 the wheel of commerce should fit into each other 
 if it is not to break down. 
 
 To ameliorate the lot of our working-classes 
 and ward off the dangers that are impending, 
 there is, I repeat once more, but one thing to 
 do : to provide them with new fields of labour 
 by sending them back to the land. To advocate 
 this solution of the problem before us has been 
 the purpose of my book, which may be said 
 to be merely an expansion of a profound thought 
 uttered long ago by a Chinese philosopher a 
 thought which should be inscribed upon the 
 walls of our schools in letters of gold 
 
 239 
 
The Return to the Land 
 
 " The well-being of a people is like a tree : 
 agriculture is its root, manufacture and com- 
 merce are its branches and its leaves ; if the root 
 is] injured, the leaves fall, the branches break 
 away, and the tree dies." 
 
 THE END 
 
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