Mr. G. J. Broomhall, of the Corn Trade News, Liverpool,
• has produced a most interesting and permanently valuable chart, showing The Annual Price of Wheat for 122 Calendar Years in the United Kingdom and the United States (5e.). It shows at a glance the variations in the British price from 1800 to 1921, with the American price from 1840. The lowest British price on record, in the period, was 22s. 6d. a quarter in 1894 ; the highest was 136s. a quarter in 1920, which, as Mr. Broomhall observes, was the last year of Government control and also a year of abundant supplies, despite the official predictions to the contrary. The chart contains brief notes on the characteristics of most years from 1840 onwards. It shows that while the price of wheat fell steeply from 1847 to 1851—the duty being reduced to a shilling in 1849—it rose as sharply from 1851 to 1855, when wheat was dearer than it had been for thirty years. Then the price fell, but with marked fluctuations for another thirty years, until in the 'eighties, with imports from India as well as America, it reached a lower level than ever before since 1800. The chart will be most useful to students as well as to business men.
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