The-violent, sudden, and ieregular fluctuations in the corn-mar- kets of
the United Kingdom, may be compared to a short Channel sea : but the commotion is only on the surface. We have the high authority of Mr. Caird to confirm the belief that we are now
in -a better position than we were at the same time last year. The deficiency made good last year, Mr. Caird says in a published letter, amounted to nearly s ix millions of quarters of wheat, and the imports were nearly six millions and a half. There had Wm been a bad seed-time and en unpropitious season; we have now had an abundant harvest and a good seed-time, The high prices of 1853 occasioned an increase of one-tenth upon the wheat acre- age; improved culture has no doubt added to the gross quantity not less than extended acreage ; and the fine season has given us additional weight as well as quantity, the increase being probably equal to two pounds in a bushel—equivalent to a million of quar- ters on the crop. Irrespectively of those unascertained sources of increase, however, the gross supply of last year, including that from abroad, was probably two millions short of our present home supply alone. The quiet on the Continent, where the anxiety ought to be greatest, shows that there is not going to be any real deficiency in Europe. We have already expressed doubts whe- ther the reported deficiency in America will be so large as it is reported to be, or uncompensated by increased acreage there. Our means of purchase are not really diminished ; the comparative equanimity with which the reports of the Liverpool failures have been received in America shows that there also they know how superfisnal a disease is this violent eruption of commercial bad blood. The firmness of our own Funds—every species of inven- tive report, Greek mallgnants, and John Bright notwithstanding— shows that monied sages equally appreciate the soundness of our resources, and the improbability that the substantial blessing of an abundant harvest can be spirited away by some stockjobbing sleight-of-hand.
