The Washington herald., 1915-05-16

because it is winter. the French peas
ant carries on agriculture and manufac-
turing side by side. His cooperative So
cieties are without number, and they
costliest farm and factory machinery.
| Those societies also bring him his gro
ceries and all kinds of supplies at first
| cost and through them he markets his
products without having to split profits
| with a brood of middlemen.
Under a system of cooperation. the
best and cheapest methods OF farm
farmer. and al the same time his cot
| tage is equipped with a small but up
and ali. In one neirhborhoo spi noted 9T for
the making of silk ribbons. the peas
ant farmers own three times as many
About the great manufacturing city OF
Lyons. hundreds of thousands of peas
ants are engaged in silk weaving,
many of them having electric power
in their cottages. In score of vii
lagos down there Matchmaking is the
side industry on nearly all the farms.
cottages have their 1athes and pro-
duce all varieties of wares from
wooden shoes to flutes. In Touraino
there are communities where every
one is a basketmaker. many of the
peasants growing their own raw ma
terial. Up in Normandy and Brittany
, lagos are engaged in characteristic
industries. At one place cutlery is the
speciality, and in others brushmaking.
the handles being turned with the aid
Of electricity. while the women sit
about their dooryards gossiping and
fixing the bristles in the brushes.
The effect of all this individual and
cooperative enterprise is reflected nv
the extraordinary statistical fact thar
hardly more than half Of the 10000
tries are wage-earners. The rest
either employers or those who work
for themselves
No EmiSration.
This means a moro general diffusion
of prosperity in France than in any
other country. The proletariate OF the
cities rightly feel that they. are not
receiving full and fair share of the
profits in the partnership between the
bourgeoisie and the peasantry. This
discomfort has given rise to the syn
movement in America and which at
times has threatened the third
public. In spite of the comparative
neglect which the wage workers have
suffered al the hands of the govern
ment. however. they are apparently
not so badly off as their brothers in
the English mill towns.
This is more than the assumption
of traveller. 1t is fact which can
be verified in the immigration stat
istics of the United States. for that is
the truest barometer of economic con-
ditions in the countries of Europe. A
stream Of migratory humanity pours
tuc VI anu out
across the Atlantic, but the French
man is not caught in the current.
The British, the Spaniards. the Ital-
their native lands by the hundreds of
thousands to seek homes among
strangers in the distant New World
The Frenchman. on the contrary. does
not emigrate and expatriate himself
He alone in all Europe has held aloor
from the rush The only considerable
colony of French in the Western Hem
isphere is to be found in the Province
of Quebec, and that was planted and
recruited in the old days under Bour.
bon misrule.
Sedan Avenged I'm Peace.
1t was a. Briton who put into
graphic phrase the great truth that a
bold peasantry Is countrys pride.
but IL is France which is illustrating
that truth today. For the French
peasant is the most independent man
In the world. Neither the tenant nor
the hireling OF lord or baron. he owns
the roof over his head, the land he
tills belongs to him and he shears the
feeces that he grazes.
This new master of the nations des-
tiny is no man on horseback. II Alsace
Is engraved on his heart SO. too, f.
Sedan. And he has avenged in peace
the disasters of war. For more glor-
ious victory than any mat a Condo.
Turenne or Napoleon ever in
scribed on her banner the new France
has won in the fields OF her peas
Copyright 1915. by James Morean.)