During the eleven years war the exports of Italian goods into France had fallen from some 300,000,000f. to about a third of this sum and of French goods into Italy from some 200,000,000f. to less than half this sum. Other countries had meanwhile filled the vacancy. It is only recently that the old figures of the eighties have again been reached.

In 1892 the French tariff was again overhauled and the régime of treaties of commerce thrown over altogether by the adoption, alongside the general tariff, of an invariable minimum tariff in the place of the conventional tariff, which had been the tariff of lowest treaty duties resulting from application of the most-favoured-nation clause. All the treaties were now denounced, and on January 31, 1892, when all but one of them would be exhausted, the minimum tariff was timed to come into operation. The one exception was the Franco-Swiss Treaty, which it was hoped would be cancelled by consent. The arrangement entered into by the French Government, however, was rejected by Parliament owing to the opposition of the silk, cotton, and cattle interests, and a tariff war with Switzerland was added to the one already raging with Italy. The Swiss quadrupled their duties on French wines, multiplied those on silks by 25, and France in 1895, for the sake of peace, had to reduce twenty-nine items of her minimum tariff, and a treaty of commerce, after all, had been necessary to preserve a market which was being lost still more rapidly than that of Italy. In three years the Swiss exports to France had fallen

over 30 per cent. and French exports to Switzerland in a still larger proportion.

These examples of tariff wars suffice to show that in the end the parties, in spite of their lost trade, have to return to the status quo ante with the superadded task to achieve of displacing those who during the struggle have taken their place.

The tariff of 1892 raised the number of items and the amounts of the duties, with the financial result not of an increase but of a loss of receipts. The amount collected in 1893 was 492,000,000f. In 1904 it had fallen to 379,000,000f. !

In 1895 the famous loi du cadenas gave the Government the right to put in force any Government Bill for the increase of duties before its adoption by the Legislature, a system right enough in principle for the prevention of fraud, but obviously in practice pledging Parliament to changes which may involve a disastrous element of uncertainty, as can be seen from the fact that between 1895 and 1908 the Government made alterations in the tariff under thirty-seven Acts of Parliament. In spite of all this tariff-mongering, the tariff has never given satisfaction. How could it? In every case the increased price necessarily sooner or later pays or helps to pay the increase of duty. It reminds one of Alice's tea-party in Wonderland, and to my mind, after the experience of France, its absurd futility is equally obvious.

In 1910 the tariff-mongers grew tired of mere tinkering and demanded a complete revision of the tariff because it no longer kept the foreigner out. French industries, in spite of almost prohibitive duties, were suffering as badly as ever. The Tariff

of 1892 was eighteen years old, a point which seemed to convey some argument per se. New industries had grown up which were also entitled to adequate protection. And, lastly, the general tariff was not high enough for retaliation purposes.

Now began a new disguised tariff war by the multiplying of categories to strike at special articles from one country while letting in those of another. In this new tariff England was treated better than some other countries, though badly enough. These categories or specifications" number some 1,500, and the difference between the general and the minimum tariff has been raised to an average of 50 per cent. Fear of reprisals, however, led Parliament to agree to a clause authorising the Government to continue to apply the 1892 Tariff to countries which did not differentiate against France.

To sum up, my experience of the working of Protection in France amounts to this that its punitive qualities have produced no results; that it has failed to promote the prosperity of French manufactures; that, wherever it has been used for coercive purposes, it has entailed loss to France; that it has necessarily been increased from time to time to fulfil its purpose of " keeping the foreigner out"; and that its final consequence can only be industrial disaster and a reversal of the present régime to save the industries of the country from their increasing langour and French export trade from being driven out of the chief markets of the world.

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CHAPTER VII

STORMS AHEAD

GAMBETTA's fall and the British occupation of Egypt were the starting-point of an era of strained AngloFrench relations. It is idle at the present day to speculate on what would ultimately have been French. policy towards this country, had Gambetta lived. Yet, so profound was my conviction at the time of Gambetta's foresight and attachment to peace, that I cannot help indulging the fancy, futile as it may be, that those who thwarted the grand ministère took an entirely mistaken view of the national interest.

Gambetta, moreover, was the one man whose antecedents might have warranted his entertaining a policy of conciliation towards Germany, and, paradox as it may seem, that which seems impossible to-day was at any rate feasable thirty years ago. His attachment to friendship with England and his conciliatory attitude towards Germany, in fact, might have saved Europe from an antagonism among the three great Powers of the West which has cost them dearly without any corresponding benefit, moral or or material to any of them.

In 1883 M. Ferry inaugurated his policy of diverting public attention from European antagonisms to colonial expansion. Though the campaigns in Madagascar, Tongking, and China kept French public opinion fully occupied during the next three years,

this colonial activity, on the other hand, excited the alarm of the Germans and Italians, who distrusted the French Government after the invasion of Tunis and its practical annexation, and they, too, proceeded to annex every scrap of territory they could lay hands on with impunity. This feverish scramble had as little common sense behind it as any financial boom. It was a saisir qui peut, as somebody at the time called it.

Even the sober and thoughtful M. Ribot was dragged into this unseemly land-grabbing policy.

The indiscretion of a French consul in Burmah, who told his Italian colleague that M. Ribot (then Minister of Foreign Affairs) was making preparations for an extension of the French Asiatic ventures to Burmah, information which in turn was imparted to his British colleague, who forthwith ciphered it to Calcutta, led Lord Dufferin without a moment's hesitation to take the necessary steps to forestall the French. Hence the annexation on the flimsiest of grounds of that important dependency to our Asiatic possessions.

I frankly confess I am not patriot enough to have any sympathy with these annexations of territory not susceptible of European colonization. Much as one must admire the work of the toiling European civil servants who give their lives to good and useful administrative work, one ought to have nothing but loathing for the frivolous pretexts employed to justify the barbarous slaughter of harmless people who rise to defend their homes against invaders, and the hypocritical pretences put forward as a reason for depriving them of their independence.

In the case of an over-peopled country there is some sort of excuse of self-preservation for the annexing of