In a town such as Paris before the Revolution, in which there was, comparatively speaking, no production at all, but only distributionthe population consisting of the great landlords, the Court and higher functionaries paid by the State, the bankers, financiers, government contractors, and other monied classes, with the great and small dealers and tradesmen needful for supplying these opulent consumers, and few labourers beyond those who cannot be wanting in so large a town-all will see that the richer must bear an unusually high numerical proportion to the poorer consumers in such a city. Suppose now that a Manchester or a Glasgow grows up in the place. It is pretty evident that while this would add a little to the richer class, it would add twenty times as much to the poorer. Considering now that the upper and middle classes in France are great consumers of animal food, while the poor consume very little of it, the portion of each poor person might in these circumstances increase very much, while yet the average consumption per head of the whole city, owing to the diminished proportional numbers of the richer class, might be considerably diminished. We have little doubt that this is the fact, and that the great increase in the inferior kinds of animal food intro- duced into Paris would prove to be for the use, not of those who formerly used the superior kinds, but in a great measure for those who seldom obtained animal food at all. This, however, does not explain the whole of the change which has taken place; for the price of butcher's meat has also risen in the Paris markets so materially as to be a source of great privation and complaint. The rise may be ascribed to various causes. In the first place, "France has till lately always been a large importer of cattle; and down to 1814 they were exempted from all duty. In that year, however, a duty of three francs was laid on each head of cattle imported;" and in 1822 the duty "was suddenly raised to 55 francs, an increase which has well nigh put a stop to the importation." * Secondly, the octroi, or town custom duty, now so burthensome, did not exist at all in 1789, and has been largely increased at various periods, both in Paris and most other towns, since its first establishment. A third cause is that the trade of butcher in Paris is a monopoly, the number of butchers being limited, and to so small a number, that the privilege bears a high pecuniary value. This we be *M'Culloch's Geographical Dictionary, art. France. Now [1862] no longer true, the occupation having been thrown open. lieve to be the principal cause of the high price and diminished consumption of meat in Paris. Two circumstances are almost decisive in proof of this opinion. One is that while the consumption per head of butcher's meat has diminished, that of almost every other article of food has largely increased. The other is, that in the banlieue of Paris, which differs from Paris itself in no material circumstance but that of being beyond the octroi, and exempt from the butcher's monopoly, the consumption per head of meat, instead of diminishing, has augmented in a remarkable degree; as it is affirmed to have also done in all the great towns of France, Paris excepted.* But if there were not these causes, there is cause almost sufficient in the very fact of an increased and rapidly increasing population. Paris has added in fourteen years, between four and five hundred thousand to its inhabitants, an increase of nearly one-half. The agriculture of a country must be rapidly improving indeed, if an increase like this can take place in a single market without compelling * On the first point: "La consommation du beurre, qui était représentée en 1812 par une valeur de 6,935,929 francs, s'élevait en 1847 à 13,303,435 fr.; celle de la marée, qui était en 1812 de 4,183,532 fr. atteignait en 1847 la valeur de 6,908,423 fr.; celle des œufs, de 3,857,150 fr. en 1823, s'élevait à 6,727,867 fr. en 1847. En 1833, la valeur de la volaille consommée s'élevait à presque 7,000,000 fr.; en 1842, c'était 10,000,000 fr.; et dans les années qui ont suivi, cette valeur s'est élevée à plus de 9,000,000 fr. C'est-à-dire que la consommation des principales denrées, beurre, œufs, volaille et marée, s'augmentait pendant une période de trente-cinq années dans des proportions supérieures à l'accroissement de la population, tandis que la consommation de la viande de boucherie diminuait de 10 kilogrammes par individu ou de 20 pour cent." On the second point: "En 1812, la population de la banlieue de Paris était de 91,000 habitans en nombres ronds. Cette population consommait alors 8930 boeufs, 528 vaches, 6844 veaux et 27,558 moutons, donnant un poids total de viande de 3,500,000 kilog. en nombres ronds, soit 38 kilog. et demi, à peu près, par individu et par an. Dequis 1812, la consommation en viande et la population n'ont pas cessé de s'accroître dans la banlieue; mais l'accroissement n'a pas suivi les mêmes proportions. En 1821, la consommation était de 5,400,000 kilog. et s'est augmentée constamment depuis; enfin, en 1835, c'était 8,500,000 kilog. En cette même année, la population de la banlieue était de 170,000 habitans, dont la consommation individuelle était de 50 kilog. par an, soit 11 kilog. et demi d'augmentation de 1812 à 1835. . . Nous devons faire remarquer que dans ces chiffres de la consommation de la banlieue, nous ne comprenons que la viande achetée sur les marchés à bestiaux de Paris: le chiffre du bétail acheté par les bouchers extra-muros, dans les foires, dans les fermes et sur les marchés des départemens, n'étant pas et ne pouvant pas être constaté. Nous n'avons pas les chiffres de la consommation de la banlieue de Paris depuis 1835. . . L'accroissement prodigieux de la consommation dans la banlieue de Paris, correspond à une augmentation du même genre dans toutes les grandes villes de France, Paris excepté." These details are extracted from an article by M. Charles Béranger, in the journal La République of January 1, 1851. it to draw its supplies from a larger surface and a greater distance, and therefore at an increased expense. Where would London have been by this time, for the supply of its markets, were it not for our great coasting trade, and the invention of steam communication, which conveys not only cattle but carcasses from the extremity of Scotland as cheaply as they could formerly be brought from Buck inghamshire? The cattle for the supply of Paris must travel by land, from distances varying from 50 to 150 leagues (this rests on the authority of a Committee of the Municipal Council of Paris in 1841), and after so long a journey have either to be brought to market out of condition, or to be fattened in the immediate neighbourhood. Can any one, then, be surprised that a double population cannot be so cheaply supplied as one of half the number? To these causes of the diminished supply of butcher's meat in the towns, we are not afraid to add another, which, though resting mainly on general considerations, we should not be wholly unable to support by positive evidence. This is, the increased consumption by the country people. They have less animal food, in proportion, to spare for the towns, because they retain more of it for their own use. On what evidence is it asserted that small properties imply deficiency of cattle, and consequent deficiency of manure? That they are not favourable to sheep farming seems to be admitted; yet in France, as well as in the United Kingdom, the number of sheep has doubled in the course of a century.* It is true that in quality, instead of the extraordinary improvement which has taken place in England, they have remained almost stationary. But the breeding and fattening of horned cattle is so perfectly compatible with small capital, that in the opinion of many Continental authorities, small farms have the advantage in this respect, and so great an advantage as to be more than a compensation for their inferiority in sheep. It is argued that the petite propriété must diminish the number of cattle, because it leads to the breaking up of natural pasture. But when natural pasture is fit for the plough, a greater number of cattle tham were supported on the whole, may be supported on a part, by laying: it out in roots and artificial grasses; and it is well known that on * Lavergne, Essai sur l'Economie Rurale de l'Angleterre, de l'Ecosse, et de l'Irlande, 3me éd. p. 16. + See this question discussed in Book I. ch, ix, of the present work, pp. 193-7. the stall-feeding system there is much greater preservation of manure. The question of petite culture, in relation to cattle, is, in fact, one and the same with the question of stall-feeding. The two things must stand or fall together. Stall-feeding produces, cæteris paribus, a greater quantity of provisions, but in the opinion of most judges a lower quality. Experience must decide. This brings us back to the causes assigned by the committee of the Paris town-council, for the falling off in the quality of the beef consumed at Paris. One is, the extraordinary increase in the consumption of dairy produce. Milk is now brought from distances of thirty leagues, and within six or eight leagues of Paris no calves are now bred up, all being sold at the earliest moment possible. In consequence, a great part of the beef sold at Paris is the flesh of cows too old to be fit for producing milk. A second cause assigned is, the increase of stall-feeding. But the committee make an instructive distinction. In Normandy, which affords the greatest portion of the supply, the quality, they say, has deteriorated; but in La Vendée, and the central provinces, the Limousin, Nivernais, Bourbonnais, and La Marche, "there is improvement in weight, in fatness, and from some districts in number," though these countries have also adopted stall-feeding; and in this, say the committee, there is no contradiction, since "what is a deterioration in the rich pasturages of Calvados, is improvement in the petites herbes of the Allier and the Nièvre." It may now be left to the reader to judge if the case of our adver saries has not broken down as completely on this, their strongest point, as it has done on every other point of any importance.* We cannot close this long controversy without producing evidence of the extraordinary improvement, extraordinary both in *The consumption of butcher's meat at Paris would seem to have considerably increased since the first publication of this discussion. The following table is extracted by M. Michel Chevalier (in the Journal des Economistes for July, 1856) from the elaborate work of M. Husson, entitled "Les Consommations de Paris: " Average annual consumption per head of animal food: Viande de boucherie Porc et charcuterie or about 210 English pounds. 62 kilog. 586 grammes. amount and in rapidity, which is taking place in the productiveness of the agriculture of some parts of France. We quote from another work by an authority already cited, M. Hippolite Passy, several times a minister of Louis-Philippe, and well known as one of the most influential politicians and publicists of France. This tract, published in 1841, is an examination of "the changes in the agricultural condition of the Department of the Eure since 1800." The Eure is one of the five departments of Normandy, and belongs to the region of which M. Rubichon admits the agriculture to be the best in France; but only (as he contends) because the morcellement has not had time to produce its effects, having commenced in that region only from the Revolution, and he assigns to it accordingly no privilege but that of Outis in the Odyssey, to be devoured the last. Let us now see the facts. This department fortunately possesses an accurate agricultural statistique for the year 1800, drawn up by a préfet who took great pains to be correct in his information. M. Passy's pamphlet is a comparison of these returns with those collected by the French Government in 1837. In this interval of thirty-seven years, scarcely any new land was taken into cultivation, nearly all fit for culture having been already occupied. But fallows had diminished from 172,000 hectares to a little more than 80,000. The cultures which supply cattle had increased in a much greater proportion than any others: instead of 17 per cent of the cultivated area, they occupied 37 per cent. Horses had multiplied from 29,500 to 51,000, horned cattle from 51,000 to 106,000, sheep from 205,000 to 511,000, and as their food had increased in a still greater ratio, and there was importation besides, all kinds of live stock were better fed, and had gained in size, weight, and value. The produce per hectare of all kinds of grain, and of most other kinds of produce, had considerably increased, of some kinds nearly doubled. These changes had chiefly been effected during the second half of the period, so that the improvement was as progressive as on M. Rubichon's theory should have been the deterioration. There had been no perceptible variation in the proportion between the grande and the petite culture; nor had the division of properties at all promoted the division of farms. On the soils where small farms are most profitable, large properties are rented to small tenants; where the reverse is the case, a single farmer often rents the lands of several proprietors, and this arrangement extends it |