390° AGRICULTURAL RELIEF time being at 20 days, but was extended to three months by the edict of August 25, 1861. The southern provinces dependent upon the importation of grain now secured their imports duty free through sale of the certificates in the flour-exporting north. When the harvests were band and the importations large the millers secured the lion’s share of the bounty, while under the reverse conditions, when the amount of importation was small, the grain traders in the south raised the price on the certificates. The landlords on the south soon began to complain that they were not sufficiently protected against the growing oversea competition resulting from the lowered duties on imports, while some foreign countries also, especially the Belgian Government, protested against this form of export pounties. - As a result the edict of October 18, 1873, restored the provision that the importation of grain should take place through the same customs office by which the corresponding exportation of flour had gone. The new regulation did not impede the phenomenal development of the Marseilles milling industry, which immediately took advantage of the provision of manu- facture in bond (admission temporaire), imported foreign grain, and exported the flour manufactured from it to the Near Eastern countries, Egypt and Turkey. In the year 1909 the wheat importation of Marseilles amounted to 4,400,000 quintals, of which 3,400,000 quintals were reexported in the form of flour, grits, pastry, crackers, and starch. In recent years the trade in import certificates has again been admitted. At present the millers in the north export flour made from domestic grain and sell the import certificates in Marseilles, where flour made from foreign grain can be advantageously sold at home. The titres d’acquits a caution have played an important role in the iron industry also since the requirement of proof of identity was dropped in the edict of September 8, 1851. The southern and western iron and steel works carry on a flourishing export trade in goods manufactured from domestic iron, while the northern works import the higher-grade English pig iron. This pro- cedure led to complaint on the part of Germany, and edicts of January 9, 1870, and January 24, 1888, introduced restrictions prescribing the transportation of the imported iron to the plant which desired to claim the drawback and which was to affect the manufacture (obligation du convoyage a 1'usine) ; the new reculation brought to an end the commerce in iron certificates. IMPORT CERTIFICATES IN THE GERMAN GRAIN TRADE The above-described effects of the traffic in import certificates have been especially conspicuous in Germany also. Different districts within the coun- try are interested in the commerce in grain in very different ways. The north- eastern Prussian provinces produce a surplus which, by the aid of cheap freights by water, they can market more advantageously in England than in the more remote consumption centers of Germany, while Russia and Austria- Hungary afford a more convenient source of supply for the industrial sections of middle and southern Germany. In the years 1887 and 1888, therefore, the landlords began agitating a demand for the issue of import certificates; in view of the fact that the question related to an extension of elaborative indus- try, they demanded abolition of the requirement for proof of identity. In the law of April 14, 1894, the desired change was introduced, and it has been retained in the latest tariff law of December 25, 1902. By the terms of the law, on the exportation of wheat, rye, spelt, oats, buckwheat, legumes, hops, rape, and beet-seed, and when the amount exported is at least 500 kilograms, cer- tificates are issued which entitle the holder to import duty-free a correspond- ing quantity of the same commodity within an interval to be fixed by the Bundesrat, but in no case to exceed six months. As a further extension of this traffic, the proprietors of grinding roller mills, to whom the privileges of manu- facture in bond had already been granted in the tariff law of July 16, 1879, and also the proprietors of oil mills, likewise received permission to use import certificates. They were given the certificates on exportation of manufactured goods produced by themselves within the customs domain, issued on the basis of the amount of raw material embodied in the products, and subject to the provision that this amount must be not less than 500 kilograms. The yield- ratio fixed in the exportation requirements is in the case of rye flour 75 per cent, of barley malt 75 per cent. and of wheat malt 78 per cent.