Morning journal and courier., 1880-05-21
THE OPIUM ARTICULATION.

What the ten or dozen New York speculat- ors who have undertaken to control the price of opium in this country can do is of course matter of intense interest to them, and it is also matter in which multitudes of their eountrymen who use the drug for medicine or pleasure have an interest. This specula- tion is based on the discouraging prospects of the next crop in Asiatic Turkey, whence nearly the whole worlds supply for medicinal purposes is drawn. At the first intimation of an extensive crop failure, few months ago, the spectators, it is said, bought up every pound of Turkey opium to be had at certain price in all the markets of this country, as well as of Europe and Asia, thereby securing fully three-fourths of the supply here and to come forward, or 160O out of an aggregate of about 2, 900 cases This maneuver i'm mediately put up wholesale prices at home and abroad, and the advance here soon reached about seventy-fve per cent. on the rates previously current. About three months ago opium was dull at $3 50 and $3.75 pound, in bond, while in March it was quick of sale at $625 and S6. 50, in bond Since then it has gone down to 85.75 and $6.Oo, in bond, at which prices small lots are now sold. It is significant fact, however, that the New York speculators are not, and have not been, offering any of their stock even at the highest figures reached last March On the contrary, they have been, and are still free buyers whenever any considerable quan- tity of the article can be picked up. Their confidence in it's future is evidently of the strongest kind, and if the production this year does not exceed their estimate of one- fourth an average crop they expect to be able to force further advance on present prices of at least fifty per cent.
 Whether they will succeed or not in carry ing out their plans remains to be seen, but 1t now looks very much as if they would. It has been thought that the reports of the failure of the crop in Asia Minor were exag- gerated, but such does not seem to have been the case. The poppy crop is usually sown in the fall and natures in the spring. But a spring sowing will sometimes produce inferior crop and such one is the sole de- pendence of the planters this year. A Turkish merchant who arrived in Boston day or two ago from Smyrna tells a writer for the Boston Advertiser that last winter in western ASla, aS well as 1n southern Europe, was one of unprecedented severity. In Karahissan, the chief city and province of the opium district, the mercury fell fifteen degrees below the freezing point, while the poppy fields for some days were buried under the snow. Of course the fall-sown crop was almost entirely destroyed, and the only al formative left was the reseeding of plantations early in the spring. But this operation was delayed some two or three weeks beyond the usual time in February, owing to the contin- ued cold weather. Hence the growing crop is backward and stunted, while the advent of hot weather will compel the immediate harvesting before the plant is fully matured. As the opium produced in this district is the chief source of supply for the United States the outlook for cheap opium here Is not promising. In 1868, when much less of the drug was consumed in this country than at present, it sold for $14, gold, a pound, in bond It is considered a moderate estimate that it will be from IS to $1O pound when those who control the market get ready to put the price up.