The elections are close, and in a month, the vox populi will have made themselves heard.
What will come out of it? Mystery. The consciences of certain men are so elastic, complacent and vacillating that one must expect the most disconcerting surprises.

It is not the domain of a land defense body to enter the political fray. Some colleagues, however, are daring enough to advise their subscribers to group their votes for this or that political party.

I will be careful not to make such an error and it is as a very sincere defender of the eternally deceived peasant that I will explain myself.

Do you remember, dear readers, one of the most beautiful and joyful days of your fresh youth, that of your first communion. Do you remember this three or four day retreat imposed by Catholic dogma on the eve of this act of catholicity to which the Church attaches the greatest importance; absolutely cloistered retreat, during which the priest, keeping you as far away as possible from external distractions and the ugly splashes of modern Society, endeavored to converge all your thoughts, all your young childish aspirations to elevate them well above men towards an ideal where he wanted to lead you. Remember, young and old, it is so good to remember sometimes and catch yourself with a tear in your eyelid.

Barely a month separates us from the elections and the elections this year, due to the seriousness of the present moment, will be for France a real national consultation: its life sentence or its death sentence.

This month which remains to pass before this great day must be for all earthlings, to whatever religious philosophy, whatever political nuance they belong, a true month of social retirement. The ideal to pursue, to obtain, is the salvation of France through the salvation of the French land. However, only the peasant, who knows and loves his soil, can save it and France with him.

Earthly friends, and here I am speaking to the true, the pure, to those who expect daily bread from their lands, not to these poor earthlings who, a kilometer from their outback, forget their origins and their duties. Earthly friends, I implore you, enter into retreat now. Look at the past, fear the future. Think about your children, your heritage, your old traditions.

Stay away from these political clubs where the qualities of this or that candidate are praised. Go back ten years and weigh up what we did for the earth and what we did against it.

Do not vote for a group for a nuance, for a man, vote for an economic and social program that it is your duty to impose, vote for an ideal that it would be wrong to abandon. It's not me who will tell you, vote for this bloc, left bloc, national bloc, reactionary bloc, socialist bloc. All these blocks must be put in the same basket, they rolled us all over and slammed us upside down in the basket.

The wine and agricultural associations, too young, not disciplined enough, consumed by stupid internal passions, did not have, this year, the time or the influence to impose local candidates. You will not lack candidates, and you can perfectly reconcile your political aspirations without giving up any of your land demands.

To all the candidates who will seek your votes, have them sign the earthly program that you acclaim in each of your meetings. This program can be summarized in a few lines:

Give the peasant back the place of honor he should occupy in society; ensure his dignity and prestige; give him back the freedom that is stolen from him every day. We want the peasant free at home, free in his mill, free at his still. I advise all unions to urgently meet before the elections and develop a program. Each federation will centralize these programs and will be responsible for having all candidates sign them, whatever shade they belong to. In summary, all candidates will be our candidates, if they are the candidates of our earth program. SILVIUS.

Please send us a program and suggestions to the union secretaries. The public forum is widely open to our readers. Those who approach the political side are asked not to make a personality.

AN ECONOMIC PROGRAM

For documentary purposes, we give here an agricultural program requested by the voters of the Somme.

Farmers, Peasants! This is the election period. The politicians, once again, come to us, their mouths full of beautiful speeches and even more beautiful promises. But the Earth which is dying and the Countryside which is depopulating are tired of witnessing, every four years, the same farce.

Above all, let the candidates, whoever they are and wherever they come from, if they want to obtain your ballot papers, make in writing, without restriction or reservation, the commitment to ensure that the Chamber, the minimum program of Agricultural Progress. Give and take. No commitment, no vote!

MINIMUM AGRICULTURAL PROGRAM

In economic order:

I. Maintenance of the protective customs regime of 1892. Equality of Agriculture and Industry before Customs.

II. Abolition of Summer Time, instituted to the detriment of rural France.

III. Absolute opposition to any legislative measure having the aim either of requisitioning and taxing farm products, or of inventorying them by forcing the farmer to keep a record of sales and purchases.
IV. Effective monitoring and control of stock exchanges. Research and repression of speculation, not through false pretenses that deceive no one, but through energetic and effective actions.

V. Alcohol regime to be established, before September 30, 1924, so as to place sugar beet and distillery beet on an equal footing.

VI. Publication, before August 1, 1924, of a public administration regulation concerning the application to milk of the law of August 1, 1905, on fraud, and clearly indicating to everyone, to milk producers and chemists alike and to magistrates, under what conditions milk can be declared fraudulent.

In the social order:

I. Abolition of the eight-hour law which is ruining the country and emptying the countryside of their last available labor force.

II. Reduction, with regard to Land, of the inheritance tax, established by the law of December 31, 1917, and of the inheritance taxes which, increased by the law of June 25, 1920, odiously burden the transmission of rural estate.

III. Restoration, at least partial, of the Freedom of the Testament, in order to ensure the stability of the Peasant Family and to remedy the disadvantages of forced sharing in kind.

In financial and budgetary order:

I. Full payment of their compensation to war victims.

II. Suppression of Prussian taxation, with its procession of declarations and inquisitions. Return to our secular and traditional taxes, as they were established by the Constituent Assembly, according to the Cahiers de Quatre-vingt-neuf. Transformation in the 1925 budget of all existing taxes following the index and flat-rate method.

III. Not a penny more to the State. We will find as many resources as we want and need, by eliminating State Monopolies, by bringing together the immense wealth that the State wastes and sterilizes, by drawing up and implementing a savings plan in order to eliminate at least a third of the civil servants. Hence this consequence, no civil servants, nor former civil servants to represent rural populations.

FARMERS AND PEASANTS,
Let this Program be your last word. Don't write off a single item. Take it or leave it.
Ruthlessly sweep away candidates who refuse to subscribe to it, under one pretext or another. Anyone who does not accept such just demands is lying when he calls himself the friend of the Peasant.

Le Progrès Agricole (Amiens), Agricultural newspaper - non-political - Absolutely independent.