Fruit Jam

Baldwins, Pippins, Winesaps, Deliciouses--20,000 barrels of them from U. S. orchards were piled high in the hold of S. S. Ile de France last week when she nosed past Havre breakwater. These apples, valued at $100,000, stayed on the Ile de France. France had just slapped an embargo on all "fresh fruits, live plants or parts of live plants from the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, China and Japan." The embargo was officially based on the discovery of San Jose scale, an infectious fruit scab, on recent shipments of apples and pears from the U. S. Plant-exporting China and Japan were too busy with their own troubles to protest. The fruitful Dominions took it quietly. But roars of protest rose from U. S. Chambers of Commerce. In the last two years U. S. apple-growers have sent over $3,000,000 worth of apples to France.

In Paris, U. S. commercial attaches scurried around the ministries, attempting to win over competing Norman apple growers, hoping to find a loophole by which U. S. Pippins and Baldwins could slip through the embargo if each shipment was accompanied by a special bill of health from U. S. sanitary inspectors. Also in Paris last week was none other than the President of the U. S. Chamber of Commerce, grey-haired Silas Hardy Strawn of Chicago, who has been at various times president of the U. S. Bar and Golf Associations. Lawyer Strawn was U. S. delegate to the Chinese tariff conference in Peiping, which accomplished nothing. Again last week in this latest French move against high U. S. tariffs, Lawyer Strawn could think of nothing better than oratory. Said he:

"It is an irritating step in economic warfare which will tend to destroy friendly international relations. . . . It is an unwarranted invasion by the Government into the field of private business. . . . It is a return to the obsolete system of barter and involves discrimination and retaliation. . . . It is arbitrary and unfair. It nullifies our existing trade treaties. So protesting vigorously against it, I speak for 800,000 businessmen of the United States.

"Hysteria was responsible for France withdrawing $700,000,000 in gold from the United States recently. She had a perfect right to take her gold, of course, but it did not help any just at this time and it certainly did not make us more internationally minded."

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