Iii.—: Gainers by the Duties.

In this way, to the prejudice of all consumers of bread and meat, capital was diverted to the profit of the proprietors of 138,000 rural estates of more than 96 acres, and of the owners of 711,000 estates of between 24-96 acres, although in neither classes did all the land grow wheat—to the profit, that is, of a very small minority, for the owners of estates of less than 24 acres could barely market corn. The 138,000 great estates comprise 20,691,720 acres of land fit for cultivation, an average of 180 acres; the 711,000 moderate estates, 20,483,200 acres, an average of 261/2 acres. By following a triennial rotation of crops the latter class could cultivate some 10 acres with wheat and harvest 90 cwt., of which they could sell about 70 cwt. So much for the two classes of landed proprietors who sold their corn; but the 2,617,000 owners of land of from 2 to 24 acres had among them only 15,969,600 acres of land fit for cultivation, i.e., less than 71/3 acres each, of which at most 21/2 acres could be sown annually to produce in good years some 11 to 12 cwt. per acre, of which two-thirds had to be reserved for home consumption. As for the 2,235,000 small proprietors with less than 2 acres of ground, and only 1,870,000 acres among them, they buy wheat instead of selling it. Nowadays, even among farmers who do sell wheat, many, instead of making their bread at home of their own wheat, buy from the baker. So doing, they are sure to lose the effect of the protective duty on their wheat, for the baker not only sells the bread at a price which includes the whole of the duty; but the miller and the baker each has to make his profit over and above the rise in the price of wheat due to the tax; and in the price it is not possible to distinguish the excess which is due to the tariff from normal profit. If on a hundredweight of wheat the duty is 2s., and the wheat merchant makes 10 per cent., the flour merchant 10 per cent., and the baker 10 per cent., the farmer who buys his bread has to pay 30 per cent. on 2s. for his protection, that is 71/2d.

Did M. Debussy really raise duties on meat in the interests of public health? In the interests of large families? Of those who since they spend their days in giving out energy, need solid food? Was it in the interest of “the agricultural labourers,” as M. Guilloteaux, the member for Morbihan, declared, although in his own division many of these wretches did not know fresh meat except by sight? No. It was all done in the interest of the owners of the 138,000 big estates, comprising 4,893,600 acres of pasture, and the owners of the 711,000 moderate estates, comprising 5,343,200 acres of pasture, for the small owners possessed only 4,980,000 acres of pasture.

Thus the middling and large owners hold more than two-thirds of the pasture land, and nearly three-fourths of the arable land. It is but one more among so many proofs that the taxes on live stock gave a profit to the territorial aristocracy at the expense of the town and country proletariate, and that was all.