The republic. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1849-1853, 1851-02-13
The Great Grain Market OF tho world.

But three years since we were assured thai
Europe was to afford us a market for almost
countless millions of bushels of wheat and corn
eff the energy Of our own people," said the
then Secretary of the Treasury, "can add
Sal 1885,, 1882 to the export and supply of oul
breadstuffs and provisions in single year, what
could they not add to such products if they en-
joyed free Of duty the markets Of the world ?''
An increase of domestic exports similar to that
which had then taken place in consequence Of
the famine in Ireland, might give, it was sup
posed, in the year l849 an amount of not less
than three hundred and t,ccnty nine millions q
dollars; and yet we have now reached the year
1851, and are exporting less cotton, less food,
and less tobacco than we did before that time.
That we haveless food to export is certainly most
fortunate for our farmers, for there exists mar
ket abroad, nor is it likely to exist. We have
now before us the London Mark Lane Erpress Of
last month, by which it appears that the average
prices of wheat throughout the kingdom range
from thirty four to forty shilings per quarter Of
five hundred and forty pounds, or from NINETY
cents to a dollarper bushel. Now, admitting that
the anticipations of the late Secretary had been
realized, and that we had now this large guam
tity of food to send abroad, at what price would
it sell2 Would it command, in the market Of
Britain, even thirty shillings per quarter, OF
seventy-fve cents per bushel, leaving for the
farmer even fifty cents here? 1t certainly
would not His anticipations have not been
realized, and we have less to sell, and there
fore prices are maintained; and this is regarded
by him, we doubt not, as evidence of the sound
ness of the theory on which was based his al
iteration of the tariff of 1916. So is it with all
these English economists. Their predictions are
never realized, yet are they never dsheartened.
British free-trade must be right, however wrong
they themselves may be. We are now import
ing enormous quantities of food, in the form Of
iron, and we can export scarcely any to pay for
it, and this is supposed to be the process by
which the farmer is to secure high prices for
his products and obtain his iron cheaply. In
Ohio, says one of our exchange papers, " one
thousand two hundred square miles are under
laid with iron. A region explored in 1888
would furnish iron sixty-one miles long and
six miles wide; square would yield 5000
600 tons of pig iron; so that this district
would contain 1000, 100000 tons, which
would last 300 years-as long distance
certainly as any man looks ahead The
States of Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, ILL
nois, Maryland, and Virginia possess inexhaust-
IDLE quantities of iron ORE"
And yet Ohio. Indiana, and Illinois, which
have only food to sell, are rendering themselves
daily more and more dependent for iron upon a
distant country, in which wheat sells at from
ninety cents to a dollar per bushel and in
which iron will again sell for ten pounds per
ton when the remainder Of our furnaces shall be
blown out, as they are likely soon TO be. Our
farmers who have food to sell are daily dimin-
ishing the competition for the purchase of their
products, and for the sale of iron, the result of
which must inevitably be, and that ere long,
cheap food and dear iron.