The Express.
London, England, 1855-02-19 00:00:00

GAZETTE RETURNS OF WHEAT SOLD.

A correspondent has called our attention to the
circumstance that the quantity of wheat returned in
the Gazette, as sold in the towns of England and
Wake, cannot be assumed to be the quantity Wo-
olly sold or consumed. What he says on this point
is quite true; but the quantity returned as sold more
often noseds than falls short of the quantity actually
sold for consumption. The bulk of all the wheat
and flour, consumed by the town population.of Eng-
land and Wales, is undoubtedly bought and sold as
wheat in the markets of the 290 towns, including
London, from which the returns are collected. Some
of the flour made from wheat sold in the town mar-
kets goes to feed part of the agricultural
population. Some of this wheat, too, is re-bald
in the towns, and appears in the inspectors' returns
two or three times. For example,wheat which is sold
in a small town, say Chelmsford, is afterwards sent
to London and resold at Mark-lane. In years when
speculation in corn is rife the same parcel of corn is
notoriously sold two or three times over in the same
town, and every sale may be included in the returns.
Thus it is quite true that these returns are not an
accurate index of the quantity of wheat consumed by
our town population, for which we used them; but
they are erroneous more on the side of excess than
deficiency. So much we say of the nature and
accuracy of these returns ; and now to add a few
words as to the important question of the quantity of
wheat consumed, to illustrate which we quoted them.
Mr. BRIGHT, it will be remembered, assumed, in
his speech at Manchester, that the people consumed
30,000,000 quarters of wheat; he also assumed that
the price had been raised 20s. per quarter by the
war; and concluded that war had cost the people, in
the price of their wheat, 30,000,00 W. This being a
mere repetition of the gross exaggeration of the
Times, which we exposed some months ago, we took
fresh ground to expose Mr. Balcarr's exaggeration.
We took the largest quantity of wheat ever sold in
our towns since 1842 as the consumption of the town
population ; we took an equal amount as the consump-
tion of the agricultural population, who are not equal
in numbers to the population of the 290 towns from
which returns are made ; and adding to it the largest
quantity of wheat and flour ever imported, we con-
cluded that the total was less than2o,ooo,ooo quarters.
Such a slim is far more in accordance with all modern
estimates of the whole consumption of the nation
than the quantity stated by Mr. Baum. We are
quite aware, however, that it needs a great variety
of corrections; and it is worth while to notice some.
Between 1849-53 the average of the sales in the
towns was 4,608,939 qrs., and of the total imports of
wheat and flour the/average was 6,072,722 qrs.; or
2,057,301 qrs. and 1,163,038 qrs. respectively leas
than the extreme quantities we stated. But the sales
in the towns apply only to England and Wales, and
the imports are for the whole empire. Now, we
have recently obtained an accurate account of the
produce of wheat in Scotland in 1851—a year when
it was largely cultivated and the yield large—and the
total was 606,063 qrs. The total produce of Ireland,
of which we have also returns, was at most 1,400,000
qrs. ; and we have the quantity of wheat and wheat
flour imported in 1854, 5,500,000 qrs. Thus we have
three elements of our total supply, and they amount
together to 7,506,313 qrs. There remains, there-
fore, only the growth of England and Wales
to be accurately ascertained. If for the har-
vest of 1854 we add one-third to the avenge
sales in the towns, we shall have 6,145,252 qrs.; and
if we take an equal amount for the consumption of the
population of England and Wales not dwelling in
the towns, it will give 12,290,504 qrs. for the whole
consumption of England and Wales, which is not far
from the estimates of Mr. BUCKL&ND and Mr. CURD
—being some little below the latter and above the
former. Adding to this quantity the total imports,
and the growth of Ireland and Scotland, we shall
have, as the consumption of wheat in the whole em-
pire, 19,796,817 qrs., a sum that is not very widely
different from our former estimate, though arrived at
by using different elements. Mr. BRIGHT'S esti-
mate of 30,000,000 qrs. proceeds on the old supposi-
tion—that the consumption is one quarter per head—
and is erroneous, first, from assuming that the total
population is 30,000,000, when it is only 28,000,000 ;
and next, from assuming that the whole of the
people consume wheaten bread, while it is notorious
that the bulk of the Irish, a large number of the
Scotch, and some of t►e Welsh and English, never
touch it. Taking the whole population, the old esti-
mate is too high, and two-thirds of a quarter would
accord more with the facts ascertained as to our own
production and the imports of wheat.—Doily News.

It is now reported that the Earl of Carlisle, and
sot Sir F. Baring, is to have the Chancellorship of the
Duchy of Lancaster.
Baron von Usedom, on a mission from the wart of
Berlin, had an interview with the Earl of Clarendon on
Saturday.
The Home Secretary declines sanctioning the for-
mation of a volunteer rills corps at Glasgow. A local paper
advisee the gentlemen with whom the proposition orie-
-1 acted to enter the militia.

A marnege between the Earl of Monster and his
cousin, kliss Kennedy Erskine, eldest daughter of the Lady
Augusta Gordon Hallyburton, by the late Hon. Kennedy
Erskine, is spoken of.
hum M.P.'s iw TEE MlLmA.—The following
lath memben of parliament are at present serving with
their several regiments of militia :—Coloasl Orville, West.'
moth Infantry ; Colonel Dunne, Queen's County ; Major
P. Urquhart, Westmeath; Captain John O'Connell,
Dab-
lin; Captain D. O'Connell. Reny; Captain Ramondo,
Waterford ; Captain Francis Scully, Tipperary ; Lord
Bettis*, Cavan ; Colonel Sir R. Ferguson, Londonderry
Lieutenant-Colonel Caulfield, Armagh ;• Captain Coolly,
Donegal ; Captain O'Brien, King's Comm ; Lord Derma,
Cork Artillery.