The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1860-01-24 00:00:00

alfriculture.

FREE TRADE WITH FRANCE.

A correspondent writing to the Times, saes :—lt is
difficult at present to estimate fully the important re- '
sults which the execution of the Emperor Napoleon's
recent programme of commercial policy will secure to
this country as well as to France herself ; but it is
curious to note that the bugbear which no long terrified
our statesmen—viz., " l'rotection to the British fanner,"
seems to be equally alarming to the Imperial mind when
contemplating the French farmer.
While the Emperor boldly states his intention* as
regardr articles of manufacture and of consumption
generally, lie but dimly shadows forth his views as re-
gards the staple product of France, which is wheat and
other grain.
France, hitherto, has remained essentially an agricul-
tural country. Commerce, as understood in Great
Britain, is there only in its infancy. Believing, as I
do. that the majority of Englishmen are ignorant of the
immense resources of France as a corn-producing
country, and are equally ignorant of the absurd systemn
of dutica which cramps her agricultural energies. I
propose briefly to lay before your readers the nature
of the sliding scale now in operation in that country.
By decrees dating as far back as the 15th of April,
11512, and the tffith of April, 1833, France is divided
into four large districts or classes, of which classes Nos.
2 and 4 are ash-divided each into two sections, and No.
3 into three sections. Each clams and each section has
its separate scale of export and import duties on wheat,
flour, rye, barley, oats, &c., which is regulated monthly
by the average price of wheat in all the markets of each
class or section o.lring the month, but with an incoui-
prehensible feature in the arrangement, there being a
difference of 14s. per quarter between the rates of classes
Nos. 1 and 4,—that is to say, when the average price of
wheat in class No. 4 is 445. to 44'ra. per quarter, the
scale of duties is identical with those affecting class
No. 1, when the average price of that, district is Ms. to
60s. per quarter.
I Now, to prove the absurdity of this system, let us
' take thc averages of December last, which regulate the
duties of the current month. We find that in class No.
1 the ruling average equals 425. 9d. per_quarter ; in the
second section of class No. 3 it is 445. 6(1. ,• in the third
section of the same class it is 40s. 6d. ; whereas in the
second section of class No. 4 it is 455. per quarter; and,
consequently, while for the remainder of France the
import duty is virtually prohibitive, and the export duty
almont nominal, a email district on the north-wentcoast,
where the ingenious compiler of the sliding scale calcu-
lated wheat would be always cheaper than elsewhere
throughout France, is aubject to an import duty of :is.
and fin. per quarter (according to the ship's flag), and to
an export duty of ss. per quarter. Therefore, to find
a market for his produce, the farmer is compelled to
incur the coct of transport to another section, whence
it may be shipped to foreign countries to the manifest
disadvantage of both the French farmer and the French
mummer. . .

Surely such a system csmnot be perpetuated, although
the Emperor, in promulgating the necessity of "high
farming, 'makes no allusion to this subject.
Those only who have traversed the western and cow
tral district+. of France can fully appreciate the splendid
material which nature has supplied for the abaiduous
cultivator: but land being held chiefly by small farmers
whose capital is limited, the art of fanning is there in •
most primitive condition, machinery and the modern
appliances which are universal in England being almost
mink flown.

It may be srfely asserted that the production of grain
in France, by careful farming, is capable of being don-
bled, and, should all restrictions on the interoonree of
the two countries be removed, to France we may look
in future years for our chief supplies of grain, which
will be the more necessary since, from increase of popu-
lation and other causes, America seems every year likely
to export less and less for our benefit.