A gloom has come over the harvest, and the hopes
which the magnificent growing weather had justified have been replaced by fears, at present perhaps exaggerated. There is no doubt that some of the cut corn has been drenched ; that some of the uncut has been laid ; and that the ill luck has been aggravated by scarcity of hands. Irish reapers have been earning 3s. 6d. a day in their own country ! But in the central markets, where the most should be made of these evil signs, corn did not " go up " very suddenly nor very alarmingly ; and the sensitive Funds remained unaffected save by other causes. A ridiculous report about a " secret " issue of Exchequer Bills by Government had, for the hour, more effect than the rain-clouds. The money- market has just become " tight " enough to feel the influence
of any probability that gold would be wanted for export in pay- nient of corn ; so that one of the earliest and even over-sensitive tests of a serious injury to the domestic grain-supplies would be a depreciation of the public Funds. The harvest must suffer from the weather ; but it is a dogma that one fine day at harvest-time does more good than several bad days do harm ; and we have yet to learn that the mischief has been irretrievable.
