Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1888-09-05
in FEAR OF A FAMINE.
Big Shortage in the Visible Food
Supply Abroad.
SCARCITY OF WHEAT In EUROPE.
The Crops of England, France, Germany
and Austria Failure-What
the East Will Require from
Farmers of the Unit
ed States.

fact that the old world needs from TO-
100000 to 100000 bushels of wheat
more than the harvests of the year will
produce. To put it in another way, the
countries which always have to buy
wheat must this year buy some
&c, 900, 900 bushels, while the countries
raising more than they can consume
will have about 295, 100000 to sell. The
annual international grain market held
in Vienna on Monday gave estimates OF
the yield of the world, which varied
only in a few particulars from
those already given, the chief
di fferences being in unimportant coun-
tries On the other hand the state of
the French harvest seems much worse
than reported at Vienna, and the same
is even more obviously true of England.
Yesterdays terrific storm of wind and
rain ended whatever chance remained
Of decent crops in Great Britain, and
the English must now import at least
10000, 600 bushels.
France, which next to the United
States, is the greatest wheat producer
in the world, has one of the worst crops
ever reaped. A week ago it was esti-
mated that she would need to import
6S,O00,000 bushels. Now, since the
fresh storm and discovery by the first
threshings of the bad quality of the
grain, the shortage is put at $4,000, 600
by the Mercuriale des Halles, and at
100000 by Bollack, Sarassin d CO.
What makes the matter worse is that
very little, if any, of this can be made
good by Algiers, where the grasshoppers
have decimated the CROP
Germany, Italy and the Netherlands
must buy more wheat than usual, this
year, of the great exporting coun RES
We understand here that the Unite d
States and Canada can be counted on to
supply about 1O3 ,000. 0C0 bushels, Russia
90,OOO, GOO, and India $1,000, 900, but in
these latter countries there is much
more uncertainty than in the former.
From Russia, for instance, there are
all sorts of reports. quite I'M
favorable, and India is more
difficult to get the truth. But trained
experts here believe the above figures
to be tolerably correct. In any case, if
these crops turn out larger than here es-
timated, the daily increasing evidence
of bad quality and light weight of crops
IN Western Europe will quite balance
The gain
With such huge deficit as this in the
worlds market, equal to the entire
wheat crop in good year, of such
country as Germany, it is evident that
somebody must cut down the consump-
ton OF bread and that there will be
fierce competition for the possession Of
the grain markets on the continent,
which have been showing an almost
steady rise for the last ten days, with
few fluctuations resultant upon declines
In America. AS a rule, prices have
been higher, and advances sharper in
Paris than elsewhere, but yesterday
London and some English provincial
markets distanced any other spurts of
the season by a sudden advance of from
to cents per bushel upon last weeks
prices for foreign wheat. This panic
was palpably due to the drenching rain
and heavy wind storm, as in places
where the rain was not violent prices
showed less change.
The wheat market in England is still
curiously parochial affair, dependent
on all sorts OF conditionsand influences.
Liverpool generally follows New York
concerned III the Baltic trade and not SO
easily moved by American quotations,
and provincial markets, like Leeds,
Rochester and Newcastle-on-Ty Tyne,
think most of the local crops
and demand. Hence prices for
the past week have been much
affected by capricious weather, bright
day frightening buyers, heavy rain
stiffening sellers; but yesterdays storm
has so Knocked out what remained of
the English crop that this can no longer
be the case. Already we catch glimpse
of what the wheat shortage means by
the discovery that bread has gone up a
penny on quarter loaf in many parts
Of London since Monday.
The northern workhouse authorities
have their hands full with family of
Irish laborers who are accustomed to
come to England for the harvest. This
year they find no work for them to do,
and the laborers have no means with
which to get home.
What adds to the sinister aspect of the
outlook is the sad failure of the potato
crop in many parts of England and all
along the west coast of Ireland This
alone would have made bad winter
here; combined with dear bread, it is a
gloomy enough outlook.