LIVING IN FRANCE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 227, 7 January 1911, Page 8

LIVING IN FRANCE

WORKERS AND THE RISE IN 'PRICES. A SERIOUS SITUATION. The recent great strike (writes the Paris correspondent of the Daily Telegraph) has shown the ease with which the working-class can be swayed by the 'wirepullers of the Labor Confederation and the Labor Exchange, and the agitation was truly described by M. Briand as revolutionary. But, on the other hand, i there is no doubt that many a humble household is very hard put in the effort to make both ends meet, and that in too many eases the situation is well-nigh desperate. FOOD AND RENT. Prices, long very high, have risen recently in a really* surprising manner in Paris. As has more than once of late been explained, the cost of food is substantially greater than it was a few years ago. Bread, meat, vegetables and wine are all dearer than they were at the beginning of the summer, and even rents have risen. I hear of couples belonging to the working class who have been paying £l7 a 'year for two tiny rooms, and who have been told by their landlord that from New Year's Day the rent will be £-22. The tendency all round is the same. Steady women, who go out for a day's work, wives or widows, all tell the same sad story, and the butchers, at wbose shops shreds of joints which have been prepared for the kitchens of richer people are eagerly bought up by the poor, can, among many other tradesmen, fully confirm it. Nor is this melancholy struggle confined to the working-class. Many a petty tradesman could have a doleful tale to tell if he were questioned, and would admit the straits to which he is reduced. Recent legislation, and the brisk business done by the big shops, have affected him sadly. GROWTH OF SOCIALISM. Socialism has made distinct progress in this country during the last ten years, as people who are carrying on an almost hopeless light against, misery and want are apt to cling to any remedy that may be suggested to relieve them of their woes. Thus, although there is on the one hand a distinct attempt on the part of revolutionists to exploit the masses, it cannot he denied that on the other hand real distress prevails among countless families which are far too right-thinking and respectable to be led astray by would-be ring-leaders, and which live on, hoping against hope, for the dawn of a brighter day. ' The socialists are dong one good work in their agitation against these high prices, which in Paris, at any rate, are chiefly to be attributed to the vexations ■methods of the octroi system, to the increase of taxation, and to many of the middlemen, who drive hard bargains with . the producer and also with the retail , buyers. It is not a question of Protection ver- , sus Free Trade, as the country yields [ nearly everything that is required.. The . moral of all this is that a very large , section of the French population is nowengaged in a desperate struggle against want. It is in straitened circumstances, and sees little prospect for the morrow. This is the general topic of eonversa•'tion, even among the steady and thrifty ; members of the humbler classes, many of ' whom enquire anxiously if things can go l on in this way much longer. Various ' sources of relief which they formerly cn- ! joyed are now denied to them, and if • the country gentry are charitable to 'their poorer neighbors in the rural disntrirts, little help is forthcoming in the I towns, where there are now few pbilau- . thropists to interest themselves in strug.'gling households.