The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1907-07-14

Wine Drinking I'm Franc and Increase
of AdulteratiOn &C Bottom OF Trouble.
PERroNAN, June IN The remarkable
economic demonstration. unique In the
y~ariegated history of France, which the
winegrowers Of the Midi have conducted
now for the best part of two months with a
view to bettering their material condition
will have ended before these lines can be
read in America, but the real causes of that
demonstration and the conditions In the
country affected have been told only frag-
mentarily in the cable dispatches and they
form a most interesting, almost astonishing,
chapter in the long story of economic
progress.
The people of the our Departments bor-
dering the Mediterranean from the mouth OF
the Rhone to the Pyrenees are not French
men as the world understands and thinks of
F~renchmen. In speech, in manner, In type
they resemble somewhat the Spaniards.
but they are less Spanish than they are
French. For want Of a better term they are
often called by those who study them Py-
reneeans.
Their country, in many respects q won-
derful one and! full Of historical as we'll as
contemporaneous interest, is yet compare
lively little visited by the supposedly ubiqui-
tous tourist. Daudet has made them best
known to the reading world, but the Merid-
ionaux arc not all as Daudet painted his
delightful characters.
There is the Midi o. Dcudet and there is
The Midi Of a different character, less ebul-
lent. not less pronounced in Independence.
The Midi of Daudet has been seen in aggre-
gates OF hundreds Of thousands in these
last weeks OF early summer and has been
heard where the telegraph ticks aroun the
world. IL is the other Midi that the French
Government and Parliament have to settle
with in the last analysis.
For there is distress in the Midi, or more
accurately in parts Of the Midi the distress
that comes Of a severe falling of in business.
Of personal distress in the sense Of suffering
for want Of food there is comparatively
little. and what there is appears in the De-
psrtment of Aude.
To say the truth, not a person visible in
the Aude wears the aspect of a hungry
uerson, but citizens of Narbonne. in this
department, declare that many Of the work.
ing people are obliged to restrict themselves
to one meal q day through inability to fnd
employment enough to pay for more. It
Is III JIuS department tb6t Xix vihCsiovcTb
demonstrations originated.
Argeliers. the centre of the agitation.
l. little more than an hours drive from
Narbonne. There is a reason, a very
simple one for the greater distress mani
Testing itself in Aude. In this department
the people cultivate practically nothing
but the vine.
They grow small quantities Of food for
their own consumption, but their gardens
are all small. designed for family supply
only. The only labor wanted for hire is
vineyard labor.
The vineyardists not being able TO sell
their wine cannot pay laborers, and some
distress is the inevitable result. The
suffer accordingly from the inability of
anybody to buy much.
LAND OF THE
For mile after mile one may traverse the
country in the Aude and see naught growing
but vines. Even wild flowers by the road
side are few. The traveller drives or
walks with vines within arms length Of the
roadways. vines spreading across the
valleys and over the hillsides. vines ex-
tending as far as the eye a reach. re-
lieved here and there by scattered olive
trees perhaps. Trees of other sorts ex-
cept on wooded hills are few, and the blazing
sun which fires the southern temperament
is reflected from this expanse Of waving
greenery as from the vast surface OF an
undulating sea.
broad lands Of the Aude. strong and steady
as the trades. there is further suggestion Of
the ocean. but Of a tropical ocean where the
.l.--- A. 1911 faala that ha v4.,ld paroh
and ~suffocate IL they did not blow and bring
him new life in the dry furnace OF the midday
atmosphere. Many a native wears a pro-
tccting handkerchief over the back OF his
neck. and countrywomen do not disdain to
screen themselves with parasols.
The people of Aude have sat quietly down
and waited for the soil and the sunshine OF
their vale OF fortune to bring them COM
petence. When through a multiplicity OF
oalses this failed to materializethey began
to bestir themselves, not to see what was
rotten in this southern Denmark, but TO
demand that their Partisan governors
should assure them an easy living Of the
sort to which they had accustomed them
selves.
In this period of agitation not half OF
them paused TO think for themselves. Much
after the fashion OF thousands Of Americans
who credit an Administration with good
times and charge against an Administra-
ton all bad times occurring under its tenure
Of Office. these people were keen to blame
the Government for the consequences Of
their own want Of perspicacity coupled with
an alteration of the social and economic
conditions in France. And finding a nucleus
about which TO accumulate themselves and
their grievances, they set out to demand
impossibls treatment for n misunderstood
disease.
III POLITICAL ASPECT
-. 90 great heart of humanity an APP