New-York tribune., 1903-02-05
FLOUR SUPPLY SHOR
ANXIETY FELT HERE.
Milling Nen Erpect Serious RaiE
road Blockade

There is z note of alarm in the reports re-
ceved from the West, and especially from
Minneapolis, of the difficulty experienced by the
shippers TO get -four to Nev-York and other
sea board cities. The situation grows more
acute each day. and those competent IN Judge
declare that q bread famine may result unless
the railroads provide ct once better faculties
for the transportation of -four
The trouble" said a representative of the
New-York Central Railroad Yesterday. lis with
those Western roads We handle all the
freight they send us but they short on
cars and locomotives. and So are unable to
handle the great quantity of perishahle freight
which they contract to carry. and the -four
has 10 wait. The situation in d nutshell is.
that this vast country has outgrown its trans
rortation facilities, We need more tracks. more
locomotives and more cars 10 bring the i'm
mense products of the West to our seaboard
cities"
The following quotation from letter dated
11innea polls January p. and received by
George A zahrisfie, agent of the Pnsbury
washburn Mills. explains itself
The situation is much more serious than peo-
pie willing to admit and We soon expect
70 see the railroads SO conSested that the most
serious blockade in the history Of the country
will he on our hands inside of the next thirty
days. I only hope that We shall be able to
=
an absolute tie up
We are Just receiving -four shipped to US on
October 2S and November - said AIr Ia bris
kie Three special trains have been started
from Minneapolis with the hope that they will
get through before general tie UP. II usually
takes from nine to ten DAYS to get a shipment
here There are two hundred barrels on car,
and forty cars to a train, SO that these three
brip
rels Of -four l have never seen the stock so
low as it is now. and my memory covers
period of from fifteen to twenty years
Usually there five hundred thousand bar
rels of -four on hand. Now there are only one
hundred and fifty thousand in the city. The
average receipts a day are five thousand bar
reIe Four hundred thousand barrels a month
should be delivered here, instead of which only
one hundred and fifty. thousand barrels are
coming in. IN other words, there is not enough
-four here to supply the city for half month.
Ealf of the amount received goes for export
because that trade gets ;le first call srace
being engaged in advance for it both on the
cars and in the steamships.
There has already been advance in the
wholesale price of - cents barrel which
means - cents to the consumer. The lakes and
canals being frozen many shippers are sending
grain and, flour TO New Orleans and thence by
boat to New-York and Boston.
Mr. Reyter general manager of the Hecker-
Jones-Jewell Milling Company, takes a more
cheerful view of the situation. The local mills
will he able to supply all the flour that is
needed" said he, for some time to come.
know that the Western people having trou-
bic in getting cars in which TO ship their -four
here but that | hope viii be remedied soon
They have practically stopped sending dead
freight East. Flour is inclCded in dead
freight
william Lunham. of Lunham & Moore whose
firm handles large shipments of flour, admitted
that there was considerable congestion on the
Western railroads. but he did not anticipate
anything as serious a bread famine. for
said he, nearly every State has its own -four
mills and they supply sufficient flour to
tide them over in almost any emergency.
There has not been much complaint from the
bakers vet because the barrel price of -four
has not been raised sufficiently to affect them,
but the managers of some Of the large baker
les declare that the price of the loaves 9ill
surely go up if the barrel price is increased
n