Cereal regime

The Madeiran cereal regime (regímen cerealífero), against which the population always protested, began in 1899 and ended in January 1913. It was the decree of 23 December 1899 that approved the regulations for the trade in wheat and flour in Madeira and established this regime; that decree had been preceded by the law of 14 July of the same year. The decree of 26 July 1899 approved the regulations for the trade in wheat and the products of its milling, and the decree of 28 October 1909 introduced further modifications to the island’s cereal regime. Under the enactments that established the monopoly, the import for consumption of wheat of any origin was permitted only to registered merchants and flour millers, and to farmers for seed. The managing committee of the central market was required to announce, by 5 August each year, the call for the declaration of the island wheat available for sale. Within five days at most of the close of the call, the delegation was to publish a statement of the cereal declared and of its apportionment among the said registered merchants and millers.

Law no. 960 of 24 March 1920 declared the trade in and transport of Portuguese wheat and its milled products free. It obliged the registered millers to acquire all the declared wheat and laid down that foreign wheat destined for Madeira should be apportioned among the registered merchants and millers according to the tables in force published by the Ministry of Agriculture. The purchase of this wheat and of foreign flour was to be carried out by the Government, and the price of bread outside Lisbon and Porto was to be fixed by the Municipal Councils. After this enactment came the decree of 30 November 1921, which brought only slight modifications to the previous regime. It did, however, lay down that the prices of flour and bread in Funchal should be decreed for each cereal year by the central government, after consulting a delegated committee of the Agricultural Trade (Comércio Agrícola), which was to sit in this city.

The people repeatedly voiced their dislike of the cereal regime, under whose cover so many abuses and extortions were committed, and several prominent figures of the Republic had pledged to secure its abolition. Even so, it was only on 22 December 1922 that the Senate was finally induced to approve the bill for the free import of flour into Madeira, which had already been debated in the Chambers in September of the previous year. The law that put an end to the odious cereal monopoly is dated 13 January 1913 and bears the number 1392. Law no. 1294 of 31 July 1922 and the regulations approved by the decree of 1 September of the same year had not freed the island from the dominance of the flour millers.

The sugar regime (regímen sacarino, the legal regime governing sugar and alcohol production), despite the justified protests it provoked, chiefly because of the high price at which sugar came to be sold, at least had the advantage of raising the value of much land and of greatly benefiting a very large number of the island’s landowners and farmers. The cereal regime, by contrast, served only to enrich the flour millers, and it may even be said that this was the very purpose for which it was decreed. It is true that the people are still being exploited and that bread is being sold at exorbitant prices. But if the laws prohibiting imports were still in force, we are convinced that our circumstances would be even more critical, for long years of experience have shown us that no profit could ever satisfy the greed of the millers.