Industry and Agriculture

Abstract

Originally the author planned to give the following title to this chapter: Ownership of Industry. Since however this chapter is concerned primarily with the structure (which must of course include ownership) of industry and agriculture, and with the distributive system in France, the word ‘ownership, was dropped from the title. There will certainly be some criticism of this decision since many observers will consider that the problems of these two sectors of the French economy are partly due to the large number of individual owners in the country. In this section, nevertheless, it is hoped that this observation will to some degree be refuted. Certainly in the field of distribution we shall see that there has been something of a revolution in France during recent years, and that the tale of all farm produce being transported first to Les Halles in Paris and then out again to the provinces is now little more than a myth.