Weekly hawk-eye and telegraph. [volume] (Burlington, Iowa) 1855-1857, 1855-12-05
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[Erom the London Globe, NOVEL
tA'eni NV A'e'''' o'"eN'
The Prize of Gold and Grain In Euro

id
Everybody expected an ultimate rise Of prices
from the gold discoveries in California and Aus.
tralia And we do assuredly experience rise of
prices in the articles which most attract atten.
ton, because they are those OF most inhispcnsa-
bic necessity. That rise we believe to have been
owing in very considerable measure to the gold
discoveries, from which rise of prices was, as
we have said, expected. 1t has indeed taken
place in so indirect a manner, that the whole re-
suit is popularity traced to the war, or TO any
other cause than that which we believe to have
very mainly conduced to it. ya tsh
There can be no doubt tina It tho war has con-
tributcd to raise the prices OF agricultural pro-
duce in Western markets, in so far as It has
checked production in Russia, and has also with
the assistance of the Russian Governnient,) OBJ
structed the outlets for such produce as has
been raiscd. But Russia is after all, only one
field of production, and its yield by no means
proportioned to its extent Russian lroads
have indeed temporarily injured others which
are still open, such MS the Danubian Provinces;
but the active and passive part of Russia, and
the direct and indirect effects of the war, will by
no means entirely account for the present prices
of the first necessities Of life throughout the
commercial world The best proof OF that is
that which is stated by morning contemporary
tho Daily News--viz: that in FEBRUARY, 1854,
the price Of wheat stood at Sos. ltld., in Novem-
her, 1853, it stood at TBS. cd. Those high prices
were not caused by the war, which only began
in March, 1854. After the war was declared, in
in September, 1854, the price was Sos. I'd
We must look farther back fer the first sour
ces fthe dearness which means comparative
scarcity of the first necessaries. Acd we agree
with our above cited contemporary in referring
this uaipersat phenomenon IN great measure to
the prodigious stimulus afforded by the Catitor-
MAX and australian gold discoveries to commerce.
To commcrce-rather than, in the first instance
to agriculture. The stimulus is now acting on
agriculture likewise. But the growth of food is
not accomplished in a day--the seed is not put
in at one end of the machine and the harvest
drawn out of the other, after the manner of
modern manufacturing operations. The first eff
feet of the gold discoveries was to stimulate mill
ing and trading adventure to an extent unpre-
cedcntcd Since lS4s, when The average price
of wheat was sos, the exports Of Great Britain
have risen from e52 100000 to f97 100000 in
1854. The exports from Hamburg and Bremen
to Australia and the South Sea Islands rose
from less than 100000 thalers i'll 1852 TO 1000,
600 thalers in 1854. 5 ,
In the United States the operations of agricul-
t,re had stackened, white our enterprising kin$-
folk wern migrating to 'CatJorng,' driving the
Pacific as we We're driving the Australian trade,
building shlps, making railroads, anu au'unS year
by year to their town population Thus, through-
out the commercial world, the numbers of con-
sumers of agricultural produce were increasing
more rapidly than those Of producers. The bal
ance is now in course of being rcdrcssed.-
Throughout the United States and British Amer
lea, as well as in this country, an impulse
has been given to cultivation. But the effect OF
the enhanced value the first necessaries OF life,
as compared with all other products, mining or
manufacturing, has necessarily been slower in
bringing up the supply TO the demand than in
the case ofproducts which are capable of in'-
mediate and indefinite multiplication by mere
mechanical means. In word-gold has
been playing its usual tricks, and, like the
loadstonc mountain in the Arabian Nights has
been looscning every screw of sober plodding in.
dustry by its powerful attraction. Immense ae'
tivity has everywhere been called into exercise;
but the agricultural base of operations has suffer-
ed some neglect.