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

OuYtuR lUS WHO AS NtSucus LdJcI bJlh
the fashion changed from wine drinking
to water drinking. and il is to-day fashion,
able in France to drink water and not
wine.
1t is mainly the foreigners in France
and the inhabitants of foreign countries
and tho poorer people of France who
drink wine. Here was the explanation of a
large falling of in the demand for wine
which for ages had been grown and bought
Of the Meridionaux.
Again. the Bordeaux people had stand
ardized their wines and could sell a more
or less staple and stable product through
out the world, so that a man buying one of
the well known brands-whioh in no sense
meant wine OF one and the same vineyard
in each instance-could be reasonably
certain of securing a wine tasting about
as he expected it to taste.
Not so the growers Of the Midi. Their
wine continued TO be whatever Nature
made IL, be it better or worse. Truth COM
pels one to say hat IL ia generally worse.
The Midi wine is not good from the view
point of the lover of Bordeaux, nor yet OF
Of Burgundy. although Burgundy
wine has been helped" ever since the
phylloxera year by various forms Of treat
ment.
ADULTERATioN.
The Midi wine is not strong enough In
alcohol to stand long keeping or distant
transportation and the growers resorted
to 81 gar to increase the fermentation and
it's alcoholic strength. From the small be-
ginning of medical treatment" tte step 10
fraudulent adulteration was short, and It
was simple and scarcely more than a venial
sin, insomuch as the adu Iteration did not
make the wine particula rly deleterious to
health.
From this practice the rewards OF viii
culture, already large, were greatly en-
HANGED and the Midi swan in luxury.
The sugar raisers Of the north saw their
opportunity and made it easy for the Midi
to obtain sugar for it's treatment OF the
wine. not TO say it's adulteration.
Being business men. they we're not slow
to enable merchants 10 see hat they too
might increase their profits by utilizing
sugar for the Strengthening of wines OF
inferior grade. Adulteration became a
Wholesale trade and the Midi was one OF
the largest practitioners.
Not only was the first cru strengthened
and fortified by su gar additions, but sue
peulnE CfNS were TtiN1tItdl DOrtlDl6 ana
profitable 10y similar means. The market
was flooded with spurious wines at the
same time that the consumption and de-
mand for genuine wines was for reasons
already seen rapidly falling of.
Result. a Midi full of wine and emotion
and face to face with the necessity of hard
work. of changing its habits. Of changing
it's business principles. The Midi wouldn't
think of doing this. Not even would a man
think Of looking elsewhere to sell his wine
han the place where his fathers had sold
it before him..
The Midi sat under its olive trees and
said, Things are wrong, the times are out
of joint. Let Parliament-the locum tensNs
of the king ancient-set things Alright.
Nature m the king made thisa wine grow
ing country. The world has always bought
our wine; let the world buy it now. What
if we did help out our profits by using sugar
in a proper way, oh, Of course, ina proper
way-what right did that give to anybody
else to fabncate wine Of dregs and chemicals
and food the market SO that we should not
be able to sell our wine? Surprising we
do like to drink beer and absinthe, IL IL
still the worlds business to drink the wine
the Midi grows. Let the Government
help us.
These same Meridionaux would not even
recognize a further cause for the falling
off in the demand for their wine. Their
wine, especially in its second cru. was the
wine Of the poor people of Paris and Of the
stock Of the small dealers. The patrons
of these dealers, the poorer people through
many degrees, came to prefer the inebria-
ton due to a glass Of absinthe to that Of a
poor glass Of wine. And they, too, like
the Midi growers, took to absinthe and
helped to leave the wine market slow and
slack.
THE REMEDY.
The Midi is truly in hard luck, but the
fraud practised in the fabrication of wine. in
which the Midi is itself a participant, is not
the whole story of its distress, nor will a bill
against fraud restore the Midi's pros
perity. especially if the bill is only directed
against the northern sugar growers and
leaves the merchants free to adulterate
the wine.
So much for the economic causes of the
Midi's distress. and not all Of them are told
here. As for the complications due to the
political causes Of the uprising. to trace
these causes would involve a more or less.
intimate understanding of French politics
and would involve too long a story for n
newspaper article.
Suffice it to say hat reactionary, o
archical and clerical influences were at one
in aiding. encouraging and IN public prints
exaggerating the Midi movement. n to
these must be added that other element of
disorder in the republic. the General Con-
federation of Labor. All these together
brought France to the edge of revolution
four departments had therefor ceased to
conduct their political and civil functions in
the way the country's laws prescribed
and the crisis developed the latent spirit OF
i~ndiscipline in the army.
The whole was due TO economic dys-
pepsia, hysteria. exaggeration, want OF
patriotism, political ~chicanery. h dis
turbing elements in the latter categories
have been seen and heard. The ufferers
from the first malady are the ones who
must be satisfied in the end, and to that
end they and the Government must meet
on the common ground OF common sense.
And n rare meeting that will be!