The record-union., 1894-10-15
The DECLINE IN THE PRICE OF
WHEAT.

otatenentS maue by the honorable
Horace Davis, of the Golden Gate Flour
Mills of San Francisco, before the State
Board Of Trades regular meeting in this
month, on the general subject of raising
and marketing wheat, are fraught with
much significance. Mr.. Davis says that
when he went into the business wheat
sold in England at SO shillings per quar-
teE that at that period the annual wheat
product of England was nineteen and
twenty millions quarters per annum;
that in 1893 England produced $500, 900
quarters, reduction of 10000 quar-
ters; and yet wheat is sold in England
for less than % shillings per quarter.
In accounting for this decrease of price
Mr.. Davis does not allege over production
as one of the leading causes, but at
tributes it more largely to the cheap
ened production. He says that India is
raising wheat with cheap labor and sell
ing it for silver. upon which there is a
discount in the foreign market of so per
cent, and yet India wheat is sold on a
silver basis Of Is to i; that is, India has
not recognized the depreciation of silver,
but receives silver on the basis of it's
value thirty years ago. Wheat is sold in
the English market for gold price, and
| therefore when Indian wheat is sold for
% shillings in gold the proceeds of the
| sale are returned at a valuation of so
shillings in silver to the East Indian
| grower.
Argentina has become a competitor
with US in the wheat markets of the
world. A large influx into that country
of cheap Italian labor, willing to work
for few cents per day, is raising wheat
in Argentina.
Mr.. Davis describes the effect of all this
| IN graphic language when he says that
! 'The steel ship, the double compound
engine and the screw propeller have done
their perfect work in the reduction of the
price of wheat. Wheat is raised on lands
in Argentina which can be purchased for
81 90 an acre, and it is as good land as can
be found in the prairie States of the West.
country, which carry the wheat to the
seaboard at low rates. There it meets the
steel ship, the double compound engine
and the screw propeller" In all of
which Mr.. Davis is saying that il costs
! less to produce wheat now than it did in
| 1860, and that the market is correspond
ingly depressed.
This is the principle which has found
frequent reference in the columns of this
paper. The reduction in the cost of pro-
ducing wheat is felt Immediately in the
final market, and the price of wheat de-
clines in Liverpool as the cost of produc-
ing it declines in the world. The propo-
sition found in the State platform of the
Republican party therefore was formu-
lated without sufficient knowledge of the
forces which have operated to reduce the
price of wheat. The device of having the
wheat that the nome market may be ad-
vanced, will have the effect. as heretofore
stated in this paper, of reducing the cost
to the consumer; but it will have no
other effect.
AS apropos of this subject, it will in
terest our readers to learn from the state
ment of Mr.. Davis that the wheat-grow-
ing zone is but thirteen degrees wide
around the world, both in the Northern
and Southern hemispheres that is to
say, the wheat-growing zone begins at
| north latitude 340 and south latitude $40
and ends at north and south latitude 4S0;
that it is widened and diminished in diff
ferent parts of the world SO that the aver
age breadth of the two wheat-growing
zones which belt the world is about thir-
teen degrees. All the wheat-growing
areas in these zones have been ex-
plotted and are practically under culti-
vation. 1t is fact observable in wheat
growing that the lands devoted to the
cultivation of cereal rapidly diminish in
! fertilization. The average product per
acre in the United States is less than 80
per cent. of the product of forty years ago.
! Since practically ali the wheat growing
| lands in the two zones are under cultiya-
/ ton, the liberalization of the soil, and
the constantly decreasing annual product,
added to the constantly increasing de-
mand by reason of the increase of popu-
lation, will produce a different relation
between supply and demand, and in the
direction of increasing the price of wheat.
This process, however, will be slow, but
it will not be the less sure.
! In his speech at Turner Hall on Satur-
day night Burdette Cornell, the Populist
candidate for Congress in this district.
declared that Grove l.. Johnson, the Re-
publican nominee, was his only oppon-
ent, as Caminetti had no chance of win
ming. Mr.. Cornell is right as to Cami-
netti, aud may as we'll put himself in the
same category.
The Sunset Limited is a solid vesti-
buled train. splendidly equipped, leaving
San Francisco every Thursday at 1880
A. NJ.
| MISS DICKINSON will be at the Golden
/ Eagle for short stay, beginning Tues
| day, this week, with elegant art needle
/ work from Naw York Slammed r1iaoae