From the Archives ...

I wish our libraries did this: the web site of the Bibliotheque Nationale de France has digitized collections of major newspapers, which can be read in PDF. It's a great resource and worth checking out. I was just reading the lead story in the Figaro of February 12, 1885, in which a parliamentary debate was raging between those who wanted to tax wheat imports from the United States (in order to protect French farmers), and those (the "economists," as the story called them) who wanted free trade in order to keep prices down. Hard to believe that the same debate goes on today.