Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1896-10-15
THE RISE IN WHEAT.
1t Removes One of the Ch1e1
Arguments of the SilyeriteS.

The rise of thirteen cents O bushel IN
wheat during the last thirty days, while
silver has remained steady or declined
fraction, will be worth tens OF thousands
of votes to the Republican candidates.
Free coinage orators and writers have
-a-a-Sar,,aaps .hat tha- fall in -thair
products was directly due to the faIl IN
silver LAS silver went down." they said,
your WI heat went down, and silver went
down because the mints were closed
aga inst it. Consequently, unless the mints
are reopened to free coinage and silver
goes up again, your wheat must continue
to fall"
Intelligent farmers saw the fallacy OF
this, but many others were misled by il
and were inclined to vote for the man who
promised to make money plentiful and
double the price of their wheat The rise
of the past month in the cereal, while the
white metal has sagged. is a demonstra.
ton TO these men that there is no neces-
sary connection between the two, and that
the price of farm products, like that OF all
other products, is regulated by the laws OF
supply and demand.
seeing they have been deceived by the free
silver men in this vital matter the farmers
will cease to believe in the other will-o'-
the-wisp theories so alluringly presented
to them. 1t is immaterial in this connec
tion whether wheat is to advance still fur
ther as result of a world wide shortage
in the yield or whether the rise has al
rea dy been pushed too far by skillful spec.
ulators. The fact remains that with the
price of silver un changed or falling the
value of wheat has risen 20 per cent. in the
worlds markets, and every farmer can
see that the price of his products does not
depend upon the price which the mine
owners get for theirs
Wheat has fallen of late years for pre-
cisely the same reason that silver has
fallen-there was an enormous increase in
the production of both. Mr.. Cuthber,
Mills as recently demonstrated that the
decline in silver kept pace with the rapid
extension of railways, opening up thereto
fore inaccessible mining regions and
thereby increasing the worlds output.
The great bonanZas would have added lit
tie to the supply of silver without the rail
ways which carried in machinery and sup
plies and ca rried out the ore. The fall in
wheat w as produced in precisely the same
way. Ratway extensions in this country,
In dia, Russia and Argentina opened up
new an d fertile lands Wheat grown by
cheap and inferior labor in remote regions
came into competition in the world mar
kets with that produced by western farm |
TO- =.
The result W as inevitable There was no |
'silver question" i'll this.
And now whea has suddenly advanced. |
Why? Anything connected with this sill |
yer question! Not at all. 1t has gone up
because the supply has decreased. Before |
the new crop was made the reserves had
run very low and the yield in many coun- |
tries seems to be smaller than usual Es-
Inmates of our own harvest vary from $780, |
O00, 900 to 430, 100000 bushels, whereas last |
year we had 4900O0,000. Exports from
Argentina to date are less than half as |
large as they were a year ago; Russia Ii |
is said, will have 20 per cent. less than /
last year to sell, and the crop in India is so /
short that wheat is now being bough in /
San Francisco for export to that coun try.
This is such an unprecedented inciden /
that the news of 1T was received with in.
credulity in the tr ade, but dispatches from /
the Pacific coast corroborated 1t. At any
rate the demand for our wheat abroad has /
been such that since July l we have OK
ported no less than 100000 bushels.
Whether on the existing facts wheat has
already been advanced too far or whether
it should go higher still is matter we are
not discussing. What we assert is that /
farmers must be impressed with the dem
onstration that as wheat fell because of |
increased supply SO it rises because Of q
decreased supply, and its price no moro
depends upon what Mr. Jones gets for the
product of his mines than 1t does on the i
price of sulphur in Sicily.