Chapter III: The Revenge of the éMigrés

Liberal policy of 1814—Famine of 1816-1817—The great landowners—The great electors—Maintenance of famine prices—Humblot Conti against the low price of corn—Governmental anarchy—Live stock—The ironmasters—Landed owners against manufacturers—Theory of vested interests—Right to the maintenance of the tariff.

Since 1793 England had been the sole object of all the commercial measures taken by France. With the Restoration there came a complete change. Louis XVIII., knowing how much he owed to England, was unwilling to maintain the hostile provisions of the law of the 6th Brumaire. The prohibitionists, however, regarded him with suspicion, and the law of December, 1814, forbade any alteration of the tariff by royal decrees except in the direction of an increase, with a reservation, however, in the case of raw material. It permitted the export of corn when the price of wheat was not above 5s. 31/2d. to 6s. 4d. per bushel, according to the district, while on import there was merely a 41/2d. duty per cwt. of grain or flour.

Between 1816-1817 there was a famine. M. Voyer d’Argenson describes its effects when he says that he collected in his herbal twenty-two different species of plant used as food by the people of the Vosges, who, taught by old traditions, pulled them up in the fields.

The landed proprietors who paid £12 in direct taxes, for the most part émigrés who had either returned to such of their estates as had not been sold or bought extensive properties out of the four million pounds compensation, made a great to-do about the danger from Russian wheat, whose net cost at Marseilles they declared to be 3s. 9d., 4s. 1d., and 4s. 41/2d. per bushel. This was not accurate.

The harvest had been bad. At the time of the debate on the Budget of 1819 prices were at famine height. M. Lainé, in introducing the measure, stated that the price of wheat at Marseilles was 5s. 91/2d. per bushel. The Home Secretary, the Duke of Decazes, abandoning all pretence, openly admitted that “the scheme had been drawn up solely in the interests of the landlords and the farmers”; and the large proprietors paying £12 got the sliding scale established to maintain the famine prices. By the irony of facts low prices followed, instead of preceding, the tariff. The reaction that followed on the death of the Duc de Berry still further increased the preponderance of the landed interest by giving them cumulative votes in the electoral congress. In order to raise prices still further they forced on the Ministry a new project, which, however, did not satisfy them; M. Humblot Conti went so far as to demand a prohibitive tax on wheat. “Cheap corn,” he said, “makes the labourers idle; labour is dear and difficult to get.”

A proposition was introduced for making provision for bad years by filling granaries in the good, and the Government scheme was carried further in Committee. The Finance Minister, Villèle, represented the great landowners of the Upper Garonne. “The Home Secretary,” said M. Amé, “fights with the Finance Minister, and he in his turn has to face the Chief Director of Customs and M. Hély d’Oissel, the royal agent.” The Committee’s scheme was passed. “What justification was there,” asked M. Voyer d’Argenson, “for disturbing the happy equilibrium between producer and consumer established in 1815, simply because the landowners who paid £12 were considered the only qualified representatives of the nation, and for making a monopoly of what was before only preference?” Facts remained ironic: the harvest was comparatively good, and prices went down in 1822. Protection for corn was not enough; cattle must be protected. In 1664 Colbert had only taxed cattle 2s. 6d. per head; neither the Republic nor the Empire had placed any duty on food; the law of 1816 taxed fat cattle 2s. 8d. and medium stock in proportion. M. de Bourrienne declaimed against “the fatal superabundance of meat”; an amendment suggested raising the duty to 26s. 1d., the Committee to 40s.; and M. de Bourrienne declared that were that not enough a provisional decree could set things right. A Western deputy, indeed, asked for a duty of 88s. Germany threatened to retaliate. Threats and an aggravation of the tariff was the only reply. The Revolution had abolished the privileges and exemptions of the nobles; the émigrés and their descendants were taking their revenge. If they paid taxes they recouped themselves by private dues levied on all their countrymen who had to buy bread or meat; they satisfied their ancient grudges and at the same time looked after themselves with great success. They completed their work by heavy charges on industry. When smelting was done by means of charcoal the ironmasters were owners of the forests. Since 1814 they had insisted on the iron tax of 1794 and 1806 being raised, and meantime, by means of the royal decree of 1814, which ordered iron to be put in bonded warehouses, they put a stop to importation. The projected tax of 12s. on a product which sold at 24s. to 28s. raised the price 50 per cent., but the ironmasters clamoured for prohibition. The Government, however, introduced their tariff as a provisional measure, and in compliance with the will of Louis XVIII. announced that they should demand its gradual reduction. In spite of this, however, the duties on iron steadily rose. In 1822 the Commission’s scheme was passed by 217 votes to 78, in spite of M. Laborde’s protests: “The law which you are about to pass is a law of partial privilege: all France is to pay a bounty to the ironmasters and the Norman cattle-breeders.” The law of 1826 marks the zenith of Restoration Protectionism. The landowners, pretending that they were always being sacrificed to the manufacturers, demanded the exclusion of foreign wools and obtained a tariff as complicated as it was oppressive. In spite of the Government the tax on fat cattle was made to apply to lean; the duty on vegetables was doubled. Raw cotton had been penalised, as competing with flax. In 1820 Leclerc de Beaulieu, declaring cotton textiles “a plague to France,” demanded their prohibition, and Saint Chamans wanted the duty on silk and cotton mixtures raised from 32s. to 120s.; Kergariou asked that linen and hemp should be absolutely prohibited, and Saint Cricq himself had to put in a warning voice—“We must not prohibit everything.”

The Commission raised the duty on cast steel from 40s. to 48s. per cwt., and that on sheet iron and wire to 56s. per cwt. The discussion of the Bill showed the enormous profits of the ironmasters. In 1790 they sold their iron profitably at 12s. 10d. per cwt.; in 1822 they declared the price must be 20s. per cwt., a figure which represented an excess of £1,200,000 on the production of 1825. The 1822 tariff was maintained without increase. Under a pretext of giving drawbacks, bounties were granted; they were given on woollen threads and textiles so as to maintain for the benefit of the manufactures the profit assured by protection to wool.

As a Protectionist, Count Jaubert admitted later, “each branch of industry was in a state of recrimination to the others.” In 1828 a majority of the Chamber, in an address to the Throne, declared freedom to be the first essential for trade and industry. In 1828 a Commission of Inquiry of twenty-eight members was appointed, and at once attacked the rights gained by Protectionist duties. “There are rights wherever there are interests created by the law.” In virtue of this theory the Protectionists could always demand new tariffs and deny the right of Parliament ever to reduce or abolish any.