PARISIAN AGITATORS AT RHEIMS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 88, 15 April 1911, Page 5

PARISIAN AGITATORS AT RHEIMS.

POLICE SENT TO AREEST THEM. (Received April 15, 9 a.m.) PARIS, 14th April. Several police, who have been engaged in the surveillance of anarchists, have been sent to Rheims to arrest Parisian agitators who are known to be there. PRODUCTION OF CHAMPAGNE. The varying fortunes of the champagne growers during the past twelve years have led to the present situation J The vintages of 1889 and 1900 were a failure j those of the next six years were good or fair, and that of 1907 unsatisfactory. The crop of 1908 was still worse, both in quality and quantity, and the 1909 crop, though better, was below the level of that of 1907. The 1910 vintage was a complete failure. While supplies have been steadily diminishing the demand has been increasing all over the world ; and while some shippers were able to draw upon their stocks, others resorted to importing wines from outside the champagne area, though they do not admit having sold such wines as champagne. In order to prevent imposition, the new law enacts that wine grown and made in the champagne district shall be watched by excise officers from the vintage until it leaves the district, and that all such wine shall not only be entitled to be called champagne, but must be cold with the world "champagne" burned into the cork, printed on the foot or label of the bottle, and stencilled on the case. "Sparkling wines" not grown in Champagne may be shipped from the district as such. A tax of 5 centimes a bottle, payable by the manufacturer, 's I to be imposed in order to cover the cost of State control. -Breaches of these I regulations are punishable by a fine of £200. When the bill was before the Chamber of Deputies, the spokesmen of the smaller manufacturers urged that the law of 1908 shouid be extended so as to include the Upper Marne and Aube Departments. M. Lannes de Montebeflo, Deputy for Rheims, who was supported by the Reporter of the Budget Committee, reminded them that this demand was beside the point. The whole object of the Bill before the House was to prevent, for example, an Epernay firm from putting up into champagne bottles and selling as "champagne" cheap, and frequently "alien," products, the cost price of which was under a franc a bottle. The Bill passed the Senate on 10th February, and will become law three months later.