Albuquerque morning journal. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1903-1926, 1919-08-15
Peasants Are Beginning To
Realize That Cessation Of
Their Export Wine Trade
Means Big Financial Loss,
BITTERNESS TOWARD
AMERICA IS RISING
Ban on Shipping Liquor Into
This Country Means a Loss
of Over S12,000,000 An
nuaIly to French Nation,
BY Lincoln Eyre.
Especial Correspondence of the Morn
ing Journal)

ing Journal)
Paris Aug. IA. - Prohibition in
America has dealt France a staggering
blow. How much they are fated to
lose through the abrupt cessation OF
their export trade with the United
states is only now beginning to be
plain to the slow-thinking peasants
of the vineyard countries. With the
individual realization of their loss,
coming at a time when the trench
have imperative need of every cent
they can scrape together, there is aris-
ing a very considerable reeling of bit
terness toward their Transatlantic
allies.
Means Loss of Over $9,O0O,O00.
Estimates of the amount by Whlch
the winegrowers' earnings will be re-
duced as the result of the 'dry
amendment are difficult to obtain
The 1918 export figures show that
France sold America, all told, some
$4,000, 900 worth of liquid products
of the grape. But French wine eX-
perts claim that that sum is far below
the total that would be derived from
wine shipments to the United States
this year if prohibition were not in ef-
feet.
They affirm that the 100000 SOL
diers of the American eXpeditionary
forces have acquired a taste for the
beverages of champagne, Burgundy
and Bordeaux which would have vast
ly increased the consumption of these
''healthful drinks"-as the French
government officially terms them-in
the land of the doughbody.
Means Loss of $12 100000 a Year.
NJ Andre Guester, president of the
Bordeaux Chamber of Commerce, be-
lieves that the annual loss to the
French wine trade may be set at
fully $12,000,000. In addition he OBJ
serves, there must be reckoned sums
running into several millions which
would have been gained indirectly
by shippers, railroad companies and
other business handling the wine en-
route,
simultaneously France loses her
lucrative Russian markets, in which
she sold, before the war, Vinous
liquids to an annual value of some
$4,000, 900.
The following table shows the
quantities and values of wines and liq-
uors exported to America from French
vineyards in 1913:
Champagnes, 1000 cases s3,690,O 900
Fine wine bordeaux, Ber-
gundy) 10000 cases -. 1,513,0OO
Spirituous wines, 7,040 gall
Ions .,.....'.......... $4,000
gallons ............... 100000
Brandies and other spirits
Ions .................. 255,OOO
Brandies (in bottles) no.
cases ..,......'.,... ,...'''' L'oVu'oOu
LIQUORS. $4,000 cases 800. 1,O11,20
Can't Comprehend 1t.
To the French, accustomed from
childhood to drink light wines with
their meals and a nip of liquor with
their fter-dnner coffee, America
daoption of complete prohibition is
wholly incomprehensible. They SIM
ply cannot credit it. They still cling
to the hope that what little their news
papers have told them of the grea'
American drought is untrue, or, al
worst, that the constitutional amend
ment will be repealed.
"But your soldiers all liked our good
wine," the peasants say Even those
who had never tasted it before they
came here grew to appreciate how
pleasant and healthful it is to drinl
a glass or two of claret or bergund!
with ones dinner. Surely, it ist pos
sible they will be content to swallow
nothing but water the rest of thei
lives
Antidote to Alcoholism.
From a competent authority in th'
Htni
~-o~-~~-c~~~~~~~~~S~~~-~S~-
tIont,uued on PaEe TWO,