If article 419 was applied against "all unions and coalitions of the principal owners of certain goods or commodities, in order not to sell them, or to sell them only at a certain price," the whole protectionist edifice would fall to pieces.

Dalloz refers to a trust of metal factories in the Nancy and Longwy district, buying from a syndicate of factories, and making contracts with it; to the ironmasters in "Le Nord" and "Pas de Calais" agreeing to fix prices at their quarterly meetings; to the syndicate of the French steel manufacturers, constituted in order to keep up prices and regulate production; to the syndicate of salt mine owners; to the hardware trade in the east of France;" to the watchmakers in "Le Doubs;" to the French soda manufacturers, and to the international trust of zinc manufacturers.

Every day, M. Méline, or the agricultural societies urge the unions of landowners and agriculturists to make bread dear. Would they be visited by article 419? But if it is not applied to them, and if it is also not applied to the syndicates which we have mentioned, what is this article, then, but a legal survival of retrograde prejudices a dangerous survival when in the hands of some who, like Brabant, esteem that it is well to speculate as long as one wins, but that it becomes a legal offence when one loses by it.

"In England," says M. Raffalovich, in his admirable article on "Accaparement," in the Dictionnaire du Commerce, de l'Industrie et de la Banque, "liberty of commercial coalitions, which was already proclaimed by an act of 1772, was formally recognized by the law of July 4th, 1844, which totally abolished the offence of monopolizing and cornering merchandise."

In Belgium, articles 419 and 420 were replaced in 1866 by article 311 of the Belgian Penal Code, which only aims "at fraudulent means!" The reporter of the law to the Belgian Chamber said:

The partial abrogation of article 419 of the Penal Code will have this advantage that it will not allow business men being disturbed, and it will also make the people understand that the law gets rid of prejudices which have too often led to culpable acts. Thus competition is a far better medium to destroy fictitious increases of prices than legal enact

ments.

In Germany the coalitions of producers are organised and favoured by the government itself; and in Austria the "Ring was so thoroughly recognised by the gov

ernment that in 1896 it tried to take a share in its administrations.

We know, of course, the gigantic trusts of America. Yet we stick to article 419, which permits the throwing of the commercial market into confusion, the harassing of a political adversary, or, if one is a seller or a buyer, the repudiation of one's obligations by referring one's buyer or seller to the law.

French legislation, according to Raffalovich, is a survival of prejudices which prevailed during the ancient régime, for it supposes that a court can determine the price of a commodity which as every one knows is only affected by the law of demand and supply. From an economical point of view the French Penal Code is absurd, moreover, it is powerless, and the very rare application of article 419 suffices to prove it.

M. Camille Pelletan said with great simplicity in La Lanterne of March 11th: "In fact, when matters of such a nature present themselves the wish of the government has then generally a decisive influence."

So that the legal offence does not exist per se; it only exists if the government wills it. La Lanterne published extracts of an expert, M. Blanc, who "thinks he has discovered in the books, and above all in the letters written by commission agents to their customers, something which, as far as the firms of Say and Jaluzot are concerned, appears to have a kind of connection with the above-mentioned legal offence." He summoned the government to act accordingly, and the Keeper of the Seal asked for a writ against M. Jaluzot.

L

The wording of the writ made it evident that the public prosecutor did not mean to take from M. Brabant the responsibility of the prosecution. But on the 15th of March, the very day the parliamentary commission was appointed, an accusation was brought forward in the Chamber by M. Rouanet.

On Tuesday, 20th of March, the day when M. Monis, Keeper of the Seal, was to speak before the commission, a threatening article was written by M. Rouanet in La Lanterne, against M. Monis, in which he said, and rightly, too, that "the writ is worded so as to make believe that the prosecution has been set about under pressure from some bear speculator,' "and in which he openly summons M. Monis "to amend the wording of the report as otherwise it would be inferred that he was M. Jaluzot's confederate." And M. Monis did amend! The commission's report (meeting of the 21st of March) states "the Keeper of the Seals has made it clear to the commission that the Public Prosecutor has taken in hand the prosecution started as a civil proceeding only." Was, then, M. Monis frightened by the last threatening words of M. Rouanet's article?

Somewhere else M. Rouanet says that it is the beginning of the cleaning of the Augean stable: "Flour, then alcohol, will follow in the wake of sugar.

But we wish only to ask again a question which appeared on the 15th of March in Le Siècle: "Is it not true that three commission agents belonging to the Bourse du Commerce have been asked to step in as intermediaries between M. Brabant and those against whom he has instituted proceedings?

In well informed circles, in the lobby of the Law Courts and at the Bourse du Commerce an answer has been given to this question, and it is said that M. Brabant would have been left to do as he pleased by the Keeper of the Seals, had not the latter been rather frightened by the threats of some socialist members and newspapers.

In the meantime a parliamentary commission excited itself not a little to suppress the term markets. The experience of Germany is however sufficient for us not to begin the same thing. Our political economy will, no doubt, be a source of admiration for those critics who will analyse its history.

To stimulate production, to arrest consumption, to disturb commerce; to consider the act of getting up prices, at which the whole legal machinery works, an offence; to bring about a fall in prices by an exaggerated production combined with diminished outlets; to create in a democratic country an artificial industry which hardly counts 400 employers; to put on the shoulders of the consumer a tax the amount of which is double the price of the commodity, and of which nearly a third is going into the pockets of sugar manufacturers; lastly, to place that industry at the mercy of the financial policy of foreign countries-such is the system of the legislation of 1884.

1st. The suppression of bounties.

2nd. The reduction of the home consumption duty to 30 fr., i.e., to be equal to the value of the commodity itself. The suppression of the refinery tax of 4 fr., and the manufacturing tax of 1 fr.

3rd. The prompt adherence of the government to a conference which will abolish the bounties in every country, which will prevent England from imposing countervailing duties, and which will do away with those already existing in the United States.

4th. The guarantee of liberty of transactions on all markets and exchanges, with the repeal of article 419.

These, then, are urgent remedies, if we desire to prevent the forcing of sugars on the home markets from provoking a crisis, the effect of which we do not wish to exaggerate, but which, undoubtedly, will be all the more serious, seeing that the relations between the sugar industry and the State are so very intimate.