These fields are sometimes owned, but more often are rented. The landlord aims to get about 4 per cent annually on his investment. The tenant, however, pays the taxes, which sometimes amount to 1 or 2 per cent more.
The peasants complain that the horses which they need to cultivate their crops are made more expensive by the increased consumption of horse flesh as food, the demand having raised the price of horses.
The same cause has operated, so I was informed, to reduce the price of cattle. The widespread use of automobiles has lessened the price of straw in Paris, and this has been felt by the wheat growers.
I found the peasant with whom I talked to be an ardent protectionist. He spoke as if the farmers were driven to it as a last resort. As I was leaving he assured me that he was glad to speak to a "republican" and said he would not have talked to me at all if I had not been one.
This was an evidence of his loyalty to the existing régime in France and also gave additional proof of the fact that the republican party in the United States has an advantage in appealing to newly-arrived immigrants merely by reason of its name.
Foreigners are much better acquainted with the word "republic" than with the word "democracy," and I find that republican speakers have taken advantage of this fact and represented the republican party as the only exponent of the doctrines of a republic.
The New York Independent about a year ago printed the autobiography of a foreign born citizen, who presented the same idea and told of a republican speech in which this argument was made by the orator.
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE CROWNING JOSEPHINE