Daily Kennebec journal., 1904-10-22
IMPORT WHEAT
This Indicated by the
Present Situation.
New Phase of Tariff Discussion
May Be Opened.
! Wheat Is Quick Crop and Brings
| Prompt Returns.

Washington, Oct. 21.-The present
wheat situation points the way to a
radically new phase of the tariff dis
cussion in the United States. While
statisticians are disputing whether we
shall have any considerable amount of
wheat to export this year, and al
though present conditions are abnor-
NAL, it must be evident that this coun-
try is rapidly reaching the stage of it's
development when it will cease to eX-
port wheat at all, and when, perforce,
the tide will turn in the other direc-
tion, and we shall become wheat i'm
porters. The day that sees this change
in our currents of commerce will see
an imperative tariff turned into an
operative one.
When American wheat raisers no
longer have the price of their product
regulated by the worlds supply and
demand in the Liverpool market, to
which their surplus must go, they can
begin to advance the price at home,
under the same law of supply and de-
mand, up to the point where foreign
wheat could afford to pay the import
duty, which is twenty-five cents a
bushel. Will the Eastern consumers
accept this advance of more than a
dollar a barrel to flour when it comes,
or will the cry for the "cheap loaf" be
as potent here as it was in Great
Britain in the days of Golden and
Peel? If Eastern consumers of the
factory cities should kick over" on the
bread taxes. could Western farmers
.t,.~ L.
tive tariffs on Eastern goods ever since
the opening up of their prairies, be ex-
pected to defend the system any lon
ger?
Such a complication is by no means
so remote as it would at first sight ap-
pear. A Duluth despatch records that
''the Ames- Brooks Company today
purchased 100000 bushels of Manitoba
wheat for the Consolidated Elevator
Company here, paying twenty five
cents bushel duty. This is the first
American importation Of Canadian
wheat for the ordinary milling trade.
Manitoba No. Northern is equal to
No. l Northern on this side of the
boundary"
1t is obvious that the Manitoba
wheat is imported in this instance for
mixing purposes, to bring up the grade
of that on the American side of the
boundary. This is always an early
stage in the transition of a country
from being an exporter of any article
to an importer: there is always some
leakage over the lire in both directions
whenever home consumption at all ap-
proXimates home production. In fact,
we have always imported wheat on a
small scale. In the calendar year 1902
we imported over one million bushels,
but as we consumed at home 467 900, 600
bushels, and exported 202,OOO,0OO. this
was not large matter. Two reasons
might account for this small steady i'm
portatiOn during generation when
we have been large wheat exporters.
Importation for milling purposes, the
flour to be exported and a rebate Sc
cured, would lead to such a traffic: sec
ondly, small towns on the Canadian
side of the international boundary
might be near a railroad on the Ameri-
can side, but far from one on their
own, SO as to make it profitable to pay
the twenty-five cent duty. This wheat,
too, might go out of the country again.
securing rebate. 1t is probable that
genuine Importation of wheat is lust
now beginning, and still on a very
small scale, due to desire to adjust