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Show FRENCH TOURIST INDUSTRY SLACKENS. One of the principal industries of France which has suffered a decided slump during the past year has been the tourist trade. Less than a million alien visitors went into France during the year 1932, according to official reports, and the number was nearly 600,000 less than the year before. The biggest drop of tourists to France was from Great Britain, which nation sent about 350,000 fewer visitors across the channel in 1932 than 1931. No doubt one of the principal reasons rea-sons for the falling off of the British tourists was the "buy British" campaign cam-paign which has been waged relentlessly relent-lessly all over the tight little island for about two years. The British people peo-ple are not only advised to buy British-made goods, but are being told to do their traveling inside the British Empire and so keep their money at home. This campaign, coupled with the tightness of money due to hard times, has brought about a great falling off in the number of British going to France. But this is only part of the story. Americans going to France last year number 143,000, a decline of 62,000. There has been a steady decline in the number of American tourists going go-ing to Europe ever since the stock market debacle of 1929. The "buy American" campaign is just now getting get-ting well under way, and the chances are that there will be an ever greater great-er decline in the number of American tourists going abroad during the present pres-ent year. Now the American tourist has always al-ways been welcomed in Paris, for financial fin-ancial if not for sentimental reasons. He has spent his money freely and the money he has left there has helped help-ed to take care of the unfavorable trade balance which France has with the United States. It is likely now, however, that the ebbing tide of tourists to France may be accelerated by the fact that the repudiation of the December installment install-ment on the debt owed to America has not calculated to increase French prestige in the United States. European Euro-pean governments, especially Great Britain and France, seem to have assumed as-sumed the attitude that there is no room for argument on the debt question, ques-tion, that Uncle Sam will have to cancel can-cel and there is' nothing he can do about it. Well, the American tourist trade is one thing to be taken into consideration. Already there is talk around Washington to the effect that a prohibitive fee should be charged by our government for passports to defaulting nations. It is easy to see where France might lose more than the annual debt installments by cancellation. |