FRENCH WINE TRADE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18509, 21 March 1922, Page 5

FRENCH WINE TRADE

A SERIOUS DECLINE. CONFERENCE OF GROWERS. Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, March 18. National Wine Week is being held in Paris, and a conference of growers, merchants, and shippers is sitting. The primary object is to re-establish the prosperity of' the wine trade. Forty years ago 6.000. acres in France were under vine cultivation, and they yielded about 1.825.000. gallons of wine a year. Now the acreage is 4,000,000, and the output is 1.000. gallons. M. Gervais, of the Academy of Agriculture, states that the sale of wines has diminished by 50 per cent, during the last 50 years. He attributes this to increased duties abroad, which are prohibitive for ordinary wines. He points out that the present English duties represent a tax of 17 per cent, on fine Bordeaux wine, of 35 per cent, on vin ordinaire, and of 118 per cent, on the cheapest wines. M., Gervais advocates a general revision of tariffs from a proportional point of view. The French conference decided upon a propaganda in allied and neutral countries in favour of French wines. It was declared that the French people would regard the prohibition of the importation of wine as a declaration of economic war. One of the measures suggested is an agreement between France and other countries exporting wines and spirits for mutual tariff concessions.—A. and N.Z. Cable.