I)
Uprising of the Wine Growers of the Midi and the Causes Thereof
'ymnOXAN, June The remark
l Ll I able fconnmiu demonstration.
1 . , . I unique In thi variegated history
f fj", )i.J of France, which the wins grow
ers of the Midi have conducted
now for the best part of two month with
a view to bettering their material condition
will hae ended before those lines 'can be
read In America, but the real causes of
that demonstration and the conditions In
the country aTecled have been told only
fragmentartly In the cable dispatches and
they form a most Interesting, almost as
tonishing chapter In the long story of
economic progress.
The people of the four departments bor
'crlnsr on the Mediterranean from the
Trtjth of the Khone to the Pyrenees are
a t Frenchmen as tlie world understands
and thinks of Frenchmen. In speech. In
manner, In type, they resemble somewhat
the Spaniards, but they are less Spanish
than they are French. For want of a bet
ter term they are often called by those
who study them Fyreneeans.
Their country ,ln many respects a won
derful one and full of historical as well as
contemporaneous Interest, Is yet compara
tively little visited by the supposedly ubl-
f teutons tourist. Daudet has made them
lest known to the reading world, but the
Merldlonaux are not all as Daudet painted
his delightful characters.
Thnre la the Midi of Paudet and there la
the Midi of a dfforent character, less ebul
lient, not lees pronounced In Independence.
The Midi of Daudet hns been seen In ag
gregates of hundreds of thousands In these
last weeks of early summer and has been
heard where the tcleyraph ticks around
the world. It Is the other Midi that the
French government and Parliament have
got to settle with in the last annlysls.
For there Is dlntress in the Midi, or more
accurately in parts of the Midi the distress
that conies of a severe falling oft in busi
ness. Of personal distress In the sense of
suffering for want of food there Is com
paratively little, and what there Is Is Id
the department of Aude.
To say the truth, not a person visible In
the Aude wears the aspect of a hungry
person, but clt Irene of Narbonne, In this
department, declare that many of the work
ing people are obliged to restrict themselves
to one. meal a day througti Inability to find
A employment enough to pay for more. It
V Is in this department that the winegrowers'
demonstrations originated.
Argellers, the center of the agitation, la
llttlu more than an hour's drive from Nar
bonne. Thero Is a reason, a very simple
one, for the greater distress manifesting
Itself in Audo. In this department the
people cultivate practically nothing but the
vine.
They grow small quantities of food for
their own cousumption. but their gardens
are all small, designed for family sui ply
only. The only labor wanted for hire Is
vineyard labor.
The vlneyardlsts pay laborers, and some
distress Is the Inevitable result. The towns
suffer accordingly from the Inability of
anybody to buy much.
I. and of the Vine.
For mile after mile one may traverse the
country In the Audo and see naught growing
but vines. Even wild flowers by the road
side are few. The traveler drives or walks
with vinos within arm's length of the val
leys and over the hillsides, vines extending
kl as far as the eye can reach, relieved here
VI and. there by scattered olive trees perhaps.
N TVftes of other sorts except on wooded hills
i"" r few, and the blazing sun which fires the
"thern temperment Is reflected from this
intense of waving greenery as from the
surface of an undulating sea.
In the strong winds that sweap across the
broad lauds of the Aude, strong and steady
aa the trades, there Is further suggestion of
the ocean, but of a tropical ooean where the
citizen of the north feels that he would
parch and suffocate If they did not blow
and bring him new life In the dry furnace
of the midday atmosphere. Many a native
wears a protecting handkerchief over the
bark of his neck, and country women do
not distaln to screen themselves with para
sols. The people of Aude have sat quietly down
and watted for the soil and the sunshine of
their vale of fortune to bring them com
petence. When, through a multiplicity of
causes this failed to materialize they be
gan to bestir themselves, not to see what
was rotten In this southern Denmark, but
i to demand that their Parisian governors
I should unsure them an easy living of the
s tt to which they had accustomed them
selves. In this period of agitation not half of
them paused to think for themselves. Much
after the fashion of thousands of Amer
icans who credit an administration with
good times and charge against an adminis
tration all bad times occurring under Its
teuure of office, these people were keen to
blame the government for the consequences
of their own want of perspicacity, ouupled.
with an alteration of the soelal and eco
nomlo conditions In France. And, finding
nucleus about which to accumulate them
selves and their grievances, they set out to
demand fallacious treatment for a misun
derstood disease.
The Political Aspect.
To the great heart of humanity an ap
peal on Uie keynote of distress Is never
made In vain. If personal Interest height
ens susceptibility to this call the response
Is likely to be correspondingly accentuated.
This was the case In the Midi, with the
additional factor of the spontaneous gen.
b
ft
: . V
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, , .Afeyfi' - thrilL
F. ::'!, ruu -t.. . - "
f 4 J I (Prej'dYUlciMdnooNN!:. w'hcrc rud rinsr Victim or thz AioTnltkC., 'A' ' IvsV.
i f , , ',iw'',rivy'titiy,iiTT1j.w,I11 t.WiM.w1r:g--JSg ' ,'v .;, , . -x i
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rnges consumed In the Midi are enormous.
With government aid the Midi again pros
pered In Its wine growing, but It did not
return to Its former habits of wine drink
ing. In the meantime a change was coming
over tho habits of the peoplo of Fram e.
The bourgeoisie, who formerly took care
', to put down a lot of wine for home con
sumption, began to take to the custom of
buying Its wine as needed. Iter sUU the
fashion changed from wine drinking to
water drinking, and It Is today fashion
able In France to drink water and not wine.
It is mainly the foreigners In France and
the Inhabitants of foreign countries and the
poorer people of France who drink wine.
Here was the explanation of a large falling
cfT In the demand for wine, which for ages
had been grown and bought of the Mori
dianoux. Again, the Bordeaux people had stand
ardized their wines and could sell a room
or less staple and stable' product through
'out the world, so that a man buying on
of h well known brands which la In no
eroslty charayt eristic of the warm-blooded
Merldlonaujr.
The departments of Herault and Gard,
on the northeast, and of the Pyrenees Ori
entates, on the south, whose wine Industry
languished even as did that of Aude, wire
keen to spring to the aid of distressed
brothers. The people of these three depart
ments were not seated on the edge of
suffering, as were those of Aude, for they
were not so exclusively vltloultural, but
their prosperity through tho cultivation of
the grape was at a low ebb. Succor for
the Aude's wine Industry would dlsseml
nate Its soothing beneficence among them.
The call to come over Into Aude and help
met an Instantaneous response. Meettnss
were organised. Leaders were selected.
The politicians, who In France are quite as
Indefatigable as, and much less stable than
those of Tammany hall or any other well
organized American political machine, saw
their opportunity and Joined foroos with
the industrial population.
Clemenceau had held power too long.
Socialists, monarchists, clericals, each had
grievances enabling- a approchement
with a common destructive end. however,
different might be their several methods of
reconstruction. That political machina
tion profited by the economic dyspepsia of
the Midi is indisputable.
sense meant wine of one and the same
vineyard In each instance could bo reason
ably certain of securing a wine tasting
bout as he expected It to taste.
Not so the growers of the Midi. Their
wine continued to be whatever nature
made It. be it better or worse. Truth com
pels one to say that It Is generally worse.
The Midi wine Is not good from the view
point of the lover of Bordeaux, not yet of
him of Burgundy, although Burgundy wine
has been "helped" ever since the phyl
loxera year by various forma of treatment.
The Midi wine is not strong enough In
alcohol to stand long keeping or distant
transportation and the growers resorted to
sugar to Increase the fermentation and Its pcpgja.
mm
Soothed by gentle anoint
ings with Cuticura Oint
ment, the Great Skin Cure,
precededbywarmbathswith
WXBBS&
4
v I
mo
For eczemas, rashes, itch--ings,
irritations, inflamma
tions, chafmgs, sunburn, tan,
pimples, blackheads.red,
rough, and sore hands, for
shaving and shampooing,
and for all the purposes of
the toilet, bath, and nursery,
Cuticura Soap and Cuticura
Uintment are priceless.
f
Bold throiurtraut The wnrld twtxt
lift ?uttu u... Byaavr. into, a. ml. ru
Ce.:"". rbto. Huns Koij ITUS ft).: JaiuB.
fc&nir&,lA4 .Tulv: an. rJiTwa. Mom: &ui
ar rwvuM, mucuas awekist m Can e( ansj
Laaeoa.tT,
slastlo hordes of excitable Merldlonaux
didn't know that they were being exploited
Is equally beyond cavil.
The remarkable demonstrations by hun
dreds of thousands In the principal towns
of the four departments of which the world
knows were the result. Word was sent
broadcast that the people were starving,
yet to the astonishment of tho world these
people Instead of Improvising weapons and
attacking the breadshops compassed or
derly pligTlmmages In astounding numbers
and cried "please" where their power might
have wrought ruin, destruction, revolution.
Dream Rnded Bloodshed.
Amazed at their own success, misled by
Spain. With the Gard, where there Is no embrace the glories and the charms of a
trouble beyond a business depression, and world meant for happiness and plenty,
where, knowing that, the people are pre- The whole landscape smiles. The peoplo
pared, as In America, to look out for them- are happy as the livelong day. EatT They
selves, one has passed a territory where can eat as Sir Toby could drink aye, and
common sense reigns. In the Herau.lt one drink so, too, while there Is a passage In
has seen struggling common sense triumph- their throats and wlno In Illyrla, which Is
ant. In the Aude one has soen all the to 41,6 Pyrennees. For there Is food In
misery that the Midi can display, and It P'nty, and wlno to accompany It yes, and
That the enthu- must be said that most of that misery Is ,,loner to buy It at the cafes; ber and bjii-
to be found In verbiage put at the dispo
sition of unscrupulous politicians.
No Revolt, Says the Wise Coachman.
F.ven In Herault the people are more In
terested In pointing out the beauties of
their country than In expatiating upon
their misery. Coachmen are about as soon
as any to deteot a falling oft In local
prosperity. The coachmen were as busy
as they ever want to be and there has
been no Influx of strangers Into the Midi,
either; quite the contrary and the coach
men were more Interested In Indulging
themselves continuously, as from hahtt, In
the enjoyment of their countryside than
ths specious exhortations of doluded leaders " enlarging upon me distress of the wlno
nit the more reorehenslble lnstlcatlons i""
of political charlatans, the people worked
themselves Into the belief that by a sort
of laying on of hands the government
could cure Instantaneously a deep rooted
disease. If not they would have none of
the government, albeit they failed to
One of these, most delightful, who
summed up In himself a whole section of
the Midi, drove about with delicious non
chalance. Had there been anything un
pleasant during the previous nieht, the
night of greatest rioting; hod there been
tomed oalmT Oh, no; except for those who
sought excitement.
To be sure, there was always a chance for
them anywhere. As for Mister Coachman,
ha went home about dinner time In the
evening and remained there till next day,
eomme d'habltude, and found most of his
recognise that refusal to carry on relations any real disturbance of the city's accua-
wlth the central aumomy at raxts was
tantamount to secession.
They , wanted to show their resentment
to live their own lives and to force the
government to enable them to live as they
had always lived, but they Imagined that
this could be accomplished without seced
ing from the rwrruhllo. which they hadn't
any real Intention or desire, to do. The ne!nbors living also as usual.
bloodshed at Narbonne. probably caused Couldn't he hurry his excellent horse a
through mistaken severity on the part of HtUe so as to permit a more complete
mounted troops, riddled their dream ana view 01 me environs of his delightful town,
left them daiod upon awakenlnsf. the largest in the Midi, of Montpeller? His
deplorable aa It was, this blood-letting horse was a veritably good one, far ahead
marked he beginning of the end of serious of any drawing a carriage plying for hire
difficulties. It gave people time to think even In the gulne of a private carriage In
of the Ignominious flight of him whom they Paris. Most certainly he could, but then
dubbed "Apostle," "Redeemer," a small monsieur or madame would be unable to
wins grower and cafe proprietor of the or jf to tnn unat,p to Bpi,reriBtrti
village of Argellers, a hamlet of 1,400 the beauties of Montpelller and its sur
people. rounding vulleys of verdure, of forest and
He had been acclaimed as a leader of 0f vines,
men. He proved to be more facile In flight Xn excellent cocher this, tied up In the
than glib In oratory. The people soon re,tr1ote1 pr,0nc of Montpelller. not like
dropped him from his pedestal, although lh, co(leh drlv,rs of oMeT tlmes an M
grudgingly relinquishing their Idea that one onIy of cUsl pernped ,
whom they had taken so warmly to their tlvlnf trav,. ym wnat th WBntM t0
hearts must be worthy of a higher place. h fcut tnorou h, on f h
h. 4.. ty-mt Anla end Narbonna ... ii.su.
w. i - lm, community who had been niiHienre-
go to any extreniUy of
slnthe to give by contrast a relish to the
vinous boverafves of the neighboring fields
which Is commoner to the Inhabitants
than water to a Yankee farmer.
And thy are proud of their abundance,
are these poople of Perplgnan. The town
Is full of Tartarlna. Will Tartarian ac
knowledge that his department la suffering?
Never. Ixiok about and you cannot doubt
even Tartarian?
But he Is lovely In the freshness of his
braggadocio. Time nor age can stale the
Inventiveness, tho pride, the confident
view of the ever living Tartarian and he
lives as well under the towering shadow
of the blue, snowcapped Pyrenees as he
does on the easterly side of the Rhone's
mouth,
Tartarln, the most modern and progres
sive Tarturiu of them all did lie not have
rubber tires on Ins luriiaue, the only car
riage in all I'erple.nou which boosted of
thei novelties of a twentieth century civil
ization? Tartarln from a tenative begin
ning developed himself quickly till he was
able to boast that unik-r tiie Pyreneean
wings which folded and expanded them
selves In sheltering core over the people of
his department were grown all the fruits
and vegetables of Africa and of France, all
Indeed that the world held good. Were the
kindly fruits and vegetables of the earth
that northern neighbors prayed their God
to preserve to them till the harvest time
also grown under the Perplgnanlan sun?
Why, there Is no land but Tartanln's!
Who knows, who cares, who dreams of
aught that the misguided outlanders may
woke up the other departments lessened M t
their Interest. Nome had suffered so much
or gone so far, and to subside gradually
into habitual calm was easy,
revolt. He would like to have business
better, but In no way Intended to have the
,,o "u W-- peaceful routine of hi. daily life Interfered
In the most northerly department. Card f processes of
te nearest to Paris, where the people . ' , 1, i
the nearest
more newspapers and think
was never at any time real trouble. In
Herault, the most Important of the depart
ments, with the largest city. Montpeller,
such troubls aa there was was paused chiefly
by hoodlums, although the troopers ex
asperated many by heedless and needless
disregard for the oltlxens' rights.
After traversing these departments, to
nneotial seasons or nnenuul itl,trik,iinn
more, there . -,i
Kiueinevs.
"Burely I will willingly hasten, monxleur,
madame, but remember you will see loss of
the beauties of the countryside of our ex
cellent city,-
.
Kda la Ike Pyrenees Shadow.
But the beauties of the Herault of Mont
Pelllor are as nauaht to the nstnr&l aitran.
enter Into the departments of Ike Pyrenees tlon, of the pynnet,a Orientales. The very
Orientates Is to behold ths realm where rauw,T jtaelf. unpoetio in it natural
nature Itself, the arch coquette. Invites to rigidity, seems to caress the limpid snores
all the sweet enjoyments of Andalusia, of of th Mediterranean on the one hand.
Granada, with a fillip which south of the while with the other It reaches like a
Pyrenees Is wanting; thus men say when patriarchal lover toward ths blus seductive
analysing their sensations ea a return (rem Pyrenees ooompsedtng in pas mnlrceiit
FLAKES
Avoid artificial flavoring
In foods. Buy E. C. CORN
Flakes, ir.ado by the origi
nal HGG-O-CEE process,
which brings out tho
wholesome, natural flavor
ofthovraln. Highest qual
ity andlargest package on
the market for 10c.
All Crooers' 10c.
think Is gnod Just because It springs up In
their st ?
Are the people of the Pyrenees Orientales
poor are suffering? Has building ceased
among them? Are they hungry? Never!
They have riot set their fields with vines
to the exclusion of other products of
nature.
They are gardeners largely. They live
well and gayly. New buildings are going
up rapidly here in Perplgnan, the chief city
of this region.
Why have these Pyreneeans turned in
their lot "with the people of the more north
ern and less wise Midi? "Tout slmplement,
monsieur, they are our brothers; we go to
sympathize with them. Why not? But In
deed we do not suffer. We have to eat and
to drink. It Is only the vulgarians who des
pise the law who have attempted to burn
the prefecture and their efforts have been
elaborated In the description by the excel
lent Journalists. Behold! here Is the pre
fecture, which was set afire four times In
four places on the same night. Where Is
the mark of all this damage? Veritably you
need be wise to find the smudge of the In
cendiary's smoke."
And so It was. Not so much as a mark
ren.alned on the prefecture building of the
awful nttenipts .f the aroused inhabitants
of this secth n of the Midi.
And was there llklihood, was there de
sire upon the part of the Inhabitants, of an
uprising against the central government at
Paris? All around market women and
men, who were said to be the worst of the
manifest ants, were selling artichokes, fat
and Juicy to a drjrree that ought to make
Mouquln buy better qualities. And the
people said In smiling self-indulgence "Ah,
we Catalans, we talk much, but we do
little."
And, terrible as may be the Catalans
, when aroused, and as their history shows,
they are not aroused as a pe"P's now; they
merely went to the aid of their less fore
sighted brothers.
(air of the Trials.
And what brought about this Midi crisis?
The answer Is altoge'her too long and too
complicated to give In a paragraph or to
give exhaustively In a volume. Put with
a little attention the reader may. obtain a
better uiidcrxtandlng of Its essential
fenfires than Is to be derived from the
necessarily brief cable dispatches which
have chronicled the Midi's demonstrations,
and a het'er comprehension even than
large numbers of the Merldlonaux have
themselves.
The Midi was prosperous. It was prodi
gal. The wine of its vineyards was sold
at a good profit and a few days' labor gave
a year's plenitude.
The phylloxera came and destroyed the
vineyards. That part of the story is old
and need not be repeated. Tho government
helped the distressed Midi. California vines
were Imported arid they are cultivated
yet not, as fond Americans would fain
believe, to grew grartes for producing wine,
but for purposes of grafting with a view
to relnvlgoratlng the wcrnout native stock.
In those diys luifore the phylloxera of
i'b the Midi drank Its wine and was happy
without intoxication. There was so muoh
wine that great quantities were distilled
and the resulting rognao was drunk also
In the Midi.
After the misfortunes of those years there
was no wins for distillation and littls to
drink. Ths Midi HmU took to absinths
and then to beer, bat mainly to absinths,
although ths quantities of both ttiess bev-
alcoholic strength. From the small be
ginning of "medical treatment" the step to
fraudulent adulteration was short, and it
was simple and scarcely more than a venial
sin, insomuch as the adulteration did not
make the wine particularly deleterious to
health.
From this practice the rewards of vltl.
culture, already larse. were greatly en
hanced and ti e Midi swnm in luxury. Tho
sugar raiders of the north sew their op
portunity and nistln it easy for tin- Mtll
to I'LHniii sugar for Its trislment of tho
wine, not to say for the wine's adultera
tion. Bcinc business men. they were not slow
to enable merchants to see that they, too,
might Increaae their profits by uillum
sugar for the sire imthcntnK of wines of
inferior grade. Adulteration became a
wholesale trade and the Midi was one of
the lamest practitlotn I ,
Not only was the lirst cm strengthened
and fortified by suKr additions, but suc
ceeding cms ' rendered possible and
profitable by sitailar means. The market
was Hooded with spurious wlnrj at the
same time thai tltu consumption and de
mand for genuine wines was for reasons
already seen rapHlly falling off. '
Result, a Midi full of wine and emotion
and face to face with tho necessity of hnrd
work, of changing its habits, of changing
Its business principles. The Midi wouldn t
think of doing this. Not even would a man
think of looking elsewhere to sell his wine
than the place where his fathers had sold
11 before lilin.
The Midi sat under its olive trees anJ
tald: Things aro wrong; the times ara out
of Joint. Let Parliament -tho locum tennis
of the king ancient h t things aright. Na
ture and the king miule this a wine-growing '
country. Tho world has always boiiKht
our wine; let the world buy It now. What
If wo did help out our profits by using
mnar- in a proper way, oh, of course, in
a proper way-wlmt rinl;t did that give to
anybody cls to fabricate wine of dregs
and chemicals ami Hood the markets so
that we should not be able to sell our
wine? Kupposing we do liko to drink beer
and absinthe. It is still the world's busi
ness to drink the wlno tho Midi grows.
Let the government help us.
These same Meridlonaux would not even
reiokiiiize a further cause for tho falling
off In the demand for their wine. Their
wine, especially In Us second cru, was ths
wlno of the poor poople of Parts and of the
stock of the small dealers. Tho patrons
of these dealers, the poorer peoplo through
many degrees, camu to prefer the Inebria
tion due to a glass of absinthe to that of a
poor Klass of wine. And they, too, like
the Midi growers, took to absinthe and
helped to leave the wlno market slow and
lack.
Tbe Itemed r.
The Midi Is truly In hard luck, but ths
fraud practised In the fabrication of wine,
In which the Midi is Itself a participant. Is
not the whole story of Its distress, nor will
a bill against fraud restore the Midi's pros
perity, especially If the bill Is only directed
against the northern sugar growers ' and
leaves the merchants free to adulterate
the wine.
So much for the economic cause of the
Midi's distress, and not all of them are told
here. As for the complications due to the
political causes of the uprising, to trace
these causes would Involvo a more or less
Intimate understanding of French politics
and would Involve too long a story for one
newspaper article.
Suffice it to say that reactionary, mon
archical and clerical Influences were at one
In aiding, encouraging and In public prints
exaggoratlng tho Midi movement, and to
these must be added that other element of
disorder In the republic, the General Con
federation of Labor. All these together
brought France to the edge of revolution
four departments had therefore ceased to
conduct their political and civil functions in
tho way the country's laws prescribed
and the crisis developed the latent spirit of
Indiscipline In the army.
The whole was due to economlo ds-
hysterla, exaggeration, want of
patrlatlsra political chicanery. Tho dis
turbing elements In the latter categories
have been seen and heard. Tho sufferers
from ths first malady are the ones who
must be satisfied In the end, and to that
end they and the government must meet
on the common ground of common sense.
And a rare meeting that will bo!
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