St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1892-10-01
4 NEW DEAL On.
British Syndicate Scheme to
Make the Wheat Corner
More Perfect.
Amount Of Wheat in Store
Hereafter to Be Known
by Elevators Only.
If Unchanged, the Wheat
Growers Will BE Complete
ly in Their Power.
Standard Oil Tactics Now to
Re Applied to the Wheat
Market.
What a Vote for the Republic
can Candidate Will Mean
This Fall.
an Ineisive Statement Of the
Situation by the Still
water Messenger.

The wheat market in the Northwest
has been pretty efIectpally cornered
during the past decade, but unless some
stringent action is taken, the worst is
yet to come.
The great British syndicate. which
owns and operates the Pillsbury-Wash-
burn mills at Minneapolis, has evidently
entered the field more earnestly than
ever, and the chains are to be riveted
more closely than before on the helpless
farmers of the Northwest.
A few days ago the announcement
was made that the private elevators at
Minneapolis and the companies that
hold large amounts of grain in elevators
at interior points would uolonger furnish
information as to the amount of grain
i'll store. The reason given for this step
is one that VIII not stand moments
consideration; the object that is sought
is too apparent. The elevator combine
will, of course, know the exact number
OF bushels of grain on hand, while no
one else will be able to gain any idea
save from tie totally unreliable reports
given out by the government
What is the object of this sudden
move in the interests of the farmer. pro-
feSSedly, by the elevator men? Ii the
latter do a legitimate business their
profits ought 10 be in nowiSe affected by
either high or low market. Their
charges are and should be gagged not
on the selling price of wheat and other
grains, but upon the
Cost of Handling,
storage, insurance, transportation and
commission. All these charges are
made at a certain figure per buShel,
with few and minor exceptions. For
these reasons and many more that will
occur to every thinking man this action
OF the elevator companies has a bad
look.
Take this powerful British syndicate
that is operating the leading mills in
Minneapolis. With the knowledge
they will have of the amount of grain
in store i'll the Northwest, as we'll as the
entire world, ana with their connec-
toes with the old world centers. what
will there be under this system to PIE
vent them running the price of grain
up or down to suit themselves? They
will become to the wheat business what
the Standard Oil company has been and
is to the oil producers. They will fix
prices to suit themselves. When the
farmers are rushing their wheat to
market the price Will, of course, be
very low; when the crop of the North
west has been stored IN their ware
houses the price will 90 up.
The Standard Oil trust, which is to
have a rival in the British Milling trust,
absolutely controls the price of oil. and
is able to run the quotations up or
down, as seems most profitable. This
great American trust is able to do this
because its managers, and they alone,
know the amount of oil in store and on
the market.
And this is the newest scheme to be
sprung Oh the wheat producers of the
Northwest. The business men of the
country are no longer to know the
amount of wheat IN sight in the granary
of the country, the Northwest. This
year, if persisted in, this rule is certain
Minnesota and all other parts of the
country. Several months ago, it will be
remembered, the prospects were
favorable to large wheat
yield. larger, if anything, than
in 1891. Various unfavorable changes
occurred later and before harvest, and
The whole situation has changed. The
yield in many counties of Minnesota is
rot 80 per cent Of what was expected,
ana Of what good part of the country
probably believed it was. Wheat will
not be rushed to markets as it was year
ago, because the wheat is not in the
country.
And yet this great elevator combine
proposes that the country
SIzaII Not Know
of the situs IN.
And tEei- tie mana gers of this slick.