FRANCE S HIDDEN WEALTH.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 19033, 10 June 1924, Page 3

FRANCE S HIDDEN WEALTH.

WELL-FILLED ‘ ‘ SECRET STOCKINGS.”

It was with a distinct sense of relief that I left the devastated regions of Northern France, and took train for Paris, and South, writes the travelling correspondent of an English weekly. There is something infinitely sad in the spectacle of thousands of what were once happy and cosy homes, reduced by the iron hand of war to desolate, uninhabitable ruins. So I came to Paris—and its taxicabs. A cynic once remarked that the two largest classes of professional assassins are English cooks and French taxi-drivers, and, so far as the latter are concerned,! think he was very near the mark. We escaped disaster by a fraction of an inch at least three times on the way to my hotel. In all the works and factories which I Visited, not only in Paris but throughout France, only one tale was told by the workers. It was a tale of abundant work at rates of pay which, despite the high cost of living, enable the workman to maintain a reasonably good standard of life for himself and his family, with a margin for amusements and contingencies. Take the amazing Citroen works at Quai de Javel as an example. The Critroen car occupies much the same position in France as the Ford in America ,and the cost of the cheaper model works out at less than £lOO in British money. WORKING SIX DAYS A WEEK. At the time of my visit the works were turning out 200 cars a day, and no fewer than 8000 workmen were employed. I went all over the workshops, and never in all my life have I seen a factory in which all grades of employees were enabled to work in greater comfort or under niore favourable conditions. There was ample lighting and air-space for all, and it was good to see the energy and enthusiasm with which each man attended to his own particular job. Now, as to wages and hours of work. The average skilled workman at the Citroen works—the turner, the fitter, and so on earns about 40 francs per working day of eight houss. This rat© is for six full days a week. Th practice at the Citroen works—and at many others throughout France, for the matter of that—is that the workman puts in a full day on Saturdays, but is given one complete day’s holiday, on full pay, every 15 days.

The official of the Citroen company to whom I was talking informed me that most of the men perferred this arangement to a weekly half-holiday. This may be so in France, but I don’t think the system would work well in sport-loving Britain, with its Saturday

football matches and other sporting fixtures. BAD HOUSING AND HIGH RENTS. Taking conditions all round, the French artisan is prospering at present—there is no doubt of that! I visited Elbeuf,' the centre of the cloth manufacturing district, and was interested to note that the great majority of the workmen, on knocking off for their midday meal, dropped into a cafe near the factory gates for an aperitif before going home. Incidentally, the French custom ol allowing one and a-half or two hours for the midday meal gives practically every employee ample time to go home for it. He is thus spared the expense of dining at a restaurant, an advantag* which many of the workers in our larg . towns must envy. At Rheims, the centre of the wit J industry; at Lyons, of silk fame, thr same conditions prevailed. Unemployment was unknown, and everyone appeared to be happy, prosperous, and contented. There are a few “flies in the ointment,” however. The French worker in the large towns is badly housed and highly rented. I talked to a man employed in a silk factory in Lyons, and he, in common with many others I met, spoke rather bitterly on the point. He invited me to inspect his home for myself, and I naturally jumped at the chance. He lived on the third floor of a house in a rather dismal side-street. His home consisted of a small livingroom, a mere cupboard of a kitchen, and a fair-sized bedroom. It was quite nicely furnished, and his wife kept the whole place so beautifully clean and neat that it was a delight teo the eye. The accommodation was so small, however, that I was surprised to be told that the rent was 28 francs week, and would probably be increased in the near future. Even the smaller figure seemed to me altogether excessive for such a tiny place. IN RURAL FRANCE. France is continually lamenting her falling birth-rate, but a family with three or four children must be almost insufferably cramped in such quarters, and my friend told me these were the best he could afford. I could not find out what was his exact position the factory, but he was certainly not one of the best-paid workmen. He told me that his wages averaged rather less than two hundred francs a week. So much for the urban population. I come now to what is by far the most important basic industry of France —agriculture. z I visited during my stay a score of places in Northern, Central, and Southern France, ranging from thriving country towms to small hamlets. r l u prosecute any inquiry here was far more difficult than it was in the towns. The French peasant, as a class, is suspicious of strangers, and will not talk Mahout himself and his affairs so readily or so frankly as will his brother in urban districts. However, after a good deal of difficulty, I gained dependable information as to how matters are progressing with the people of agrarian France.

To begin with, it must be distinctly understood that French land is farmed almost exclusively by the owner-occu-pier. In the overwhelming majority of cases, the French farmer owns the land he tills, and works it with the aid of his family. Outside help is only called in occasionally, and is always kept down to the minimum.

Now, everything in this life is a matter of comparison, and from that standpoint I am quiet prepared to believe—what I was often told—that French agriculturists are going through a rather bad time at the moment. We all know what a disastrous slump our own farmers are experiencing after the soaring food prices of the war period, and that French agriculture should also suffer something of the sort was only to be expected. But I am sure that this temporary depression is in no way serious. The French farmer is still doing un commonly well, and French agriculture is still and will remain the financial backbone of the country. During the war the peasant farmer simply coined money, and, with proverbial French thriftiness, he saved a large proportion of what he earned. Everywhere in rural France you see unmistakable evidence of deep-abiding prosperity. Farm-houses, stables, and outbuildings have been rebuilt, improved on, and added to during the years succeeding the war. Primitive implements have been replaced by the most effective modern machinery. EVERY MAN HIS OWN BANKER. The smallest peasant farmer, when he goes to market, is well-dressed and prosperous-looking. He often takes his wife and family with him, and they will adjourn to a restaurant or cafe when the day’s buiness is done, and have a good dinner with a bottle of sound wine. I am not speaking from hearsay—l have seen them, over and over again. We all know that France always has been, and is now, an essentially rich country, and I am convinced, from a thousand things seen and heard, that a very large proportion of her wealth is kept in the weil-filled “stockings” of her peasant farmers. For even to this day, the small farmer of France is distrustful of banks, stocks, and shares, and the whole machinery of modern finance. He saves his money; but he usually keeps it in some secure hiding-place in his farmhouse. Or, if he does invest it, he rarely favours national loans or scrip. What he does is to lend it on first-class security to some neighbour he knows well, and who probably requires the money to cultivate and stock additional land which he has just bought with his own savings; and which he and his family will work.