The Express.
London, England, 1855-02-12 00:00:00

Vat tad

inward was 6,101500

qrs., la 1863. Now, if we add these extreme quail-
&lief different years together, doubling the Seat
quantity, we shall still be below 20,000,000 quarters
of wheat as our usual consumption. The meet dis-
creet, indeed, of modern statiaticians have put it
down in Great Britain (Ireland may be left out of tbe
question) at between 14,000,000 quarters and
18,000,000 quarters. Not one of them on whom any
reliant* can be plead goes beyond the latter and
larger quantity. Aga", then, Mr. Bomar is guilty,
in his estimate of the quantity of wheat consumed, of
an exaggeration equivalent to a full third.
We gather from the gist of his observations that,
by saying if the imports had been free the price of
wheat now would have been 60s. per qr., instead of
705.," he means that the war has stopped the import, ;
for, except in so far as the war and our le. duty have
operated, our imports of wheat have been perfectly
free. To the war, therefore, exclusively, he attributes
a rise in the prim of wheat of 20s. per quarter. But
he builds the whole of his argument on the hearsay.
and gatherings of private information published by
the Messrs. Surma, and ignores the contradiction of
them contained in the blue book recently placed in
his possession as a member of parliament. We have
on two occasions pointed out the fallacies of the Messrs.
BTURGE, on which the hon. member built all his ar-
guments; and though we can offer no conjecture as
to what would have been the price of wheat had the
nation been at peace with Russia, we are confident
I that a calculation founded on these fallacies must be

erroneous, and are not therefore surprised that they
lead Mr. BRIGHT to adopt the astounding and absurd
exaggerations that bat for the war every family
would have saved 51., and the nation would have
saved 30,000,0001. in the oat of wheat ; that it might
have had 42,000,000 quarters to consume; and that,
instead of the present scarcity, there would have been
an abundance of the most paha character.
With the most deficient harvest—as in 1863—
and with the supplies from other countries wholly
unimpeded, with the Russian ports all open to us,
we have never imported more than 6,235,860 qrs.
of wheat and flour in any one year; end yet Mr.
Bain= informed the Manchester Chamber of Corn.
mace, in so many words, that but for the war we might
now have imported 12,000,000 qrs., and obtained pro-
fuse abundance. At present we can import nothing from
Franoe, even with wheat at 725.; and this high price
is sufficient only to bring the merest driblets from
the United States. Since last September there have
come only 79,425 barrels of flour and 191,727 bushels
of wheat from that country to this, against 1,052,503
barrels of the former and 4,431,910 bushels of the
latter in the same period last year. America,
in fact, suffers from a failure in her wheat
crops, and all the countries which relied on her are
this year alike deprived of supplies from her. All
Europe is short of wheat, from excessive consumption
and deficient harvests. The little additional supplies
other countries might have got from Ruda more
than they have got—for the supplies thence have not
been, as Messrs. Binurr and Swann infer, wholly
stopped—would undoubtedly have diminished the
pressure; but to infer that the war has cut off our
supply of wheat to the extent of 12,000,000 quarters,
as Mr. BRIGHT implies, or 6,000,000 quarters, as
the Messrs. Sruaoa imply, is one of the greatest
exaggerations we have encountered since we had to
rebuke the similar exaggeration of the Times. Ac-
cording to the circular of Mears. STURGE, we
imported, in 1854, 3,468,605 quarters of wheat and
3,739,167 cwts. of flour, against 4,949,314 quarters
of wheat and 4,662,898 cwts. of flour in 1853—a

diminution in 1854 of 1,480,709 qrs. of wheat and
923,731 cwts. of flour. According to their statements
the harvest of 1853 was most deficient, and the har-
vest of 1P54 the largest ever grown ; it is at the
same time certain that all the comparative decline in
importation has taken place since the great harvest
of 1854 commenced in August, and was entirely the
consequence of our having a relative abundance and
low prices. It is more even than a gross exaggera-
tion, therefore, to ascribe our deficient imports to the
war—it is altogether an error; and Mr. BRIGHT has
made the Chamber 'of Commerce of Manchester the

means of sending forth a groin delusion.
We have said enough to show the character of his
speech, and of the statements which some members
of the Chamber applauded ; and we shall only add
that he spoke in their presence with some contempt
of "human statesmanship or human imposture" when
he was discussing the price of bread, but when he
contemplated the improvement of the Godavery, and
an increased supply of cotton, he invoked the aid of
this " human imposture." Oa sundry other occasions—
of far more questionable utility than the improvement
of the Oodavery—Mr. BRIGHT and his associates have
most cordially and very humbly supplicated the aid
of the " human imposture, " when it seemed likely
to promote sectarian or commercial objects. If Cham-
bers of Commerce are to be used for such purposes as
Mr. BRIGHT puts them to, they will ere long fall in
the estimation of rational people to the level of com-
binations of theorists to procure a redistribution of
property, or of landowners to plunder the people by
taxing their bread.—Daily News.