The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1896-10-23
THE PRICE OF WHEAT.
why 1t Fell and Why 1t Has Gone Up.
IN. Y. Post. }

matte On the very eve of presidential
has almost wholly based It's popular ap-
peal on the decline in wheat. in the
very face of stump speakers arguing that
wheat can never rise again under the
gold standard, and at the very moment
when the outlook for the free coinage
| campaign has become visibly hopeless
| at precisely this juncture the market
price of wheat rises 2234 cents per bushel
| above the lowest of the season.
This sudden and very violent recovery
| In the price of wheat, following it's pro-
longed decline, is due to causes which
are entirely adapted to explain the move
ment, on the simple basis of commercial
cidents of the season, but partly also
natural reaction from conditions winch
have caused, since 1882, the remarkable
and worldwide fall in the price OF c.
| reals. The year 1879 was one of those o.
oasionally recurring periods when nature
was unfavorable to agriculture pretty
generally throughout the world. The
United States was conspicuous except
tion, and by turn of fortune almost as
extraordinary as our experience this
year, the foreign shortage, the bounti-
| full domestic crops, and the consequent
enormous export trade, came at the very
time when decline in foreign exchange
was most imperatively needed to carry
| through tho specie-resumption under
taking. The price of American wheat at
that years close rose to 81. 80 per bushel
In New York, our total export trade in
creased $125, 000, 200 over the fiscal year
prsceding-all of this increase being In
products of the farm; and in two years
We imported, net, Sl74. 900. 600 of foreign
gold.
The enormously high price Of wheat
in 1879 had it's usual effect in stimulating
new wheat production throughout the
world. This movement of extension
was necessarily slow, since ii involved
providing means of transportation from
the newly cultivated wheat fields to the
markets. AS recently as 1881 lndla,s
| foreign trade In wheat was too insignih-
can't to find a place In summaries of for
eign commerce. But within ten years
| from 1881 the Indian railway system
| had been extended 1000 miles and India
exported2at the end of that period no less
than S. 600, 900 bushels Of wheat. In
Russia and in the Argentine Republic
internal railway construction had been
increased, during the same period, 5000
miles each and the facility thus pro-
videi for wheat production and sexport
had added immensely to the worlds sup
plies.
A fall in the price of wheat ensued of
course. The annual increase IN produc-
ton had very far surpassed the annual
increase in consuming population; the
result was perfectly inevitable This
fall was checked only by the generally
bad harvesus outside the United States
and India, in 1891. But the rise In
prices that year had once more it's natu-
raj result In extending the cultivation
Of wheat The worlds wheatbharvest,
| which even in 1890 had not aggregated
more than 2,284 1856, 600 bushels, had by
1894 expanded to the enormous total of
2,562, S24, IT'S.
| Even last year the reduction from this
high total record was only small. A
large crop, coming upon the market I'M
der such conditions. can have but one
result-the piling up of excessively large
reserves of wheat at storage points in the
| larger market centres, where the very
presence of such idle and always mar
kstable supplies holds down the price
Of new wheat by the constant possibility
of competition. There certainly ought
| to be no reason for surprise that the
price of wheat should fall, or the prios of
any other article as the visible supply"
in the worlds storehouses, unsold to the
| consumer, rises. Between October, 1891,
and October, 1894, this visible worlds
| supply rose from 155. 000,0O0 bushels to
205, 600, 900. an increase of nearly 80 per
cent. The annual yield OF wheat in
Eur fhn
time increased s95, 200. 600 bushels,
or nearly rs per cent. And yet philoso-
piers have been telling us all this time
shat only silver decentralization, twenty
one years before, was adequate to explain
the break in the price of wheat between
1891 and 1894.
The worlds annual yield of wheat,
and its visible supply in storehouses, in
creased continuously from 1891 to 1895,
and the price fell continuously along
with it. in 1895 the world g harvest as q
whole showed considerable decrease,
largely because of unfavorable harvest
weather In the United States. The up
ward rush of wheat in May and June
last year, however. was overdone. An
actually increased yield in Russia,
Roumania and Argentina fairly counter
balanced the shortage in this country.
That the price should therefore have re-
ceded towards the figures of 1894, even up
W tuo onIly sprung Wuedb season OF t06
present year, merely reflected supply and
demand at work again. This year the
unexpected has happened. not only ID
the smaller yield of our own spring
wheat. but insexceedingly adverse crop
conditions in India, Argentina and ON
the continent of Europe. The Argentine
Republic seems suddenly to have dropped
out of sight as An aggressive competitor,
while other producing nations, such az
Indig, where the seYerest kind of
drought has prevailed, suddenly come TO
light SO short of wheat that they are
forced to turn importers; India taking
American wheat again for the first time
in two decades. Repeated warnings of
this foreign shortage-even the urgent
demand for freight room for our export
wheat two months ago-had failed to
rouse our markets from their incredulity.
The rapih shrinkage in the worlds yisi-
BILE supply of wheat, which at the OPEN
ing of this m ,nth showed decrease
from October, 1894, of 46, 800, 600 bushels,
or 20 per cent proved that wheat was
passing from graiuarles into consumers
| hands. Yet even this was glow in nhanr-