Year: 1875

hnrAot-rEobpcct OF nrlsA EaAA


Business.


The strong upward movement in the grain
trade which has been going on for the last
ten or twelve days gives an unwonted i'm
pulse to business in what is always the
dullest season of the year, and is fitted to
raise hopes that we may soon see the end OF a
long season cf stagnation. With On abun-
dant grain crop and heavy and unexpected
foreign demand we may look for quite re-
vival of general business at the beginning OF
autumn. Our cereal products are the main
pillar of our trade that branch of industry
being the foundation of prosperity for nearly
all the others. Railroad stocks are already
improving under the certainty of large fall
business, and this tends to revival of the
iron industry, of which the railroads are the
chief customers. General trade will be quick
ened and invigorated because abundant
crops, large foreign demand and good
prices will make the agricultural population
liberal purchasers of manufactured goods.
The grain trade is the main pivot
of the business Of the country. 1t gives en-
ployment to the navigation of the lakes and
the canals, supplies the railroads with the
greater part of their freights, and is the
foundation of the commercial intercourse be-
tween the East and the West, the trade
of the agricultural West being the great
prize for which all the seaboard cities COM
pete. The prosperity of Western agriculture
viii feed the sources of all other prosperity
and although there is reason to lament the
occasion which has given this sudden mid
summer impulse to the grain trade, its effect
will be none the less beneficial.


A large proportion of the heavy purchases
of grain which have had SO stimulating an
effect, and have made the market 30 buoyant
in the dullest season of the year, is in supply
of French orders, proving that the destruc-
tive inundations in the south of France arc
the source of this movement Similar dis
asters in Hungary and on smaller scale in
England justify the expectation that larger
proportion of the food of Europe will
be supplied by America than in any
former year. Wine growing was by no
large portion of France which has been
devastated by the floods. Although the cul-
ture of the vine is widely diffused in France
its chief seat Is a belt of the middle region
between the north and the south. Only four
per cent of the productive land of France is
devoted to the v1ne, and the great Valley of
the Garonne is chiefly given to cereals and
other articles which serve for food Vines
which are raised on the hillsides are not SO
much exposed to the destructive effects of
mighty inundation as the food crops which
cover the lower lands. Every kind Of crop
used for human subsistence having been
swept away in the Valley of the Garonne the
great body of the inhabitants will live mainly
upon bread made of materials grown on other
soils, and although their poverty will compel
them to use maize, rye and barley, the drain
ing of the other parts of France of the
cheaper grains will create general increased
demand for imported wheat to supply their
place. Besides supplying large part of the
food of England, as we have always done of
late years, we shall also this year supply quite
large proportion of the food of France,
while the deficient crops of Hungary
will create a demand which will absorb
much of the wheat exported from the ports of
the Black Sea, divert it from the markets of
Western Europe, and thus incidentally in
crease the demand for American grain The
prospects of the foreign grain market stand
thus-The English demand will be rather
greater than ordinary; the French demand,
which is new and exceptional, will be very
large; and the supply from Russia, which has
always been the chief competitor of the United
States in the European markets, will be par
TALLY diverted to supply the deficiency in
Hungary, which suffers like France, though in
a lesser degree. The prospects of our grain
trode were never better than they are this
year, and the impulse to general business
could not possibly be more opportune.


1t would not be correct to represent us as
rejoicing over the calarnities of poor, smitten
France, overtaken with this appalling disas-
ter when she has scarcely emerged from
the desolating effects of great for
eign invasion and a cruelty oppressive
pecuniary indemnity. America unites
with the whole world in sincere sympathy
and commiseration. But we do rejoice
that kind Providence has blessed us with
bountiful harvests, which can be exported to
alleviate the distress of the sufferers 1t is
one of the most solid and benefcent advan-
taQes of modern commerce and intercourse
that tremendous waste of human life by
famine is no longer possible. The heart
sinks even to read in history of the appalling
decimations of the people which were of such
frequent occurrence in the Middle Ages, when
every province of Europe was dependent for
its supplies of food upon its own production.
In those times such an inundation as has re-
Gently taken place would have gone far toward
depopulating nearly one-sixth of France. But
in this age, though there will be great and