[To Iwo EDITOR or TER " SPECTATOR.1 Sr ,—While still
in general agreement with your corre- spondent Mr. R. B. Marston in his hostility to the Declara- tion of London, I should like, as one of those corn merchants to whom he has appealed, to point out a fresh crop of errors in his letter of January 7th. It is, I believe, some five or six years since I did him a similar service in the correspondence columns of the Times, and I should be delighted to give him privately any information in my power regarding the question of the food-supply of this country.
Mr. Marston asks for a corn merchant's comment upon the suggested possibility of a portion of our supply being drawn from neutral ports in time of war. The subject is, however, far too large to be dealt with in a short letter. Given present conditions, and no interference, open or veiled, with the • For details see the Nineteenth Century for June, 1898. I cannot expect space givAn to me to refer to themliere.—B. B.
neutrality of Belgium or Holland, I am of opinion that a considerable supply of wheat could be obtained through the two greatest wheat-importing ports in Europe,—viz., Antwerp and Rotterdam. It must also not be forgotten that we have, just across the English Channel, in France the third largest wheat crop of the world, and I see no reason why large supplies should not be available thence at a comparatively moderate increase in price over and above the constant higher level of price in that Protectionist country.
Mr. Marston seems to think (1) that there are no Conti- nental ports " capable of dealing with those vast supplies of wheat which now come to Liverpool, Bristol, Cardiff, Southampton, &c." The imports of wheat and flour into Antwerp in 1909 were 8,540,000 quarters, and into Rotterdam 7,346,000 quarters, or a total of nearly 16,000,000 quarters. The imports into the four English ports mentioned were : Liverpool, 5,593,000 quarters ; Bristol, 1,435,000 quarters ; Cardiff, 1,120,000 quarters; Southampton (included in the list for some occult reason), 196,000 quarters ; or a total of 8,341,000 quarters, rather more than half the imports of Antwerp and Rotterdam. For convenience of reference I add the figures for London, 5,925,000 quarters.
(2) " Ours," says Mr. Marston, " is the only country which requires these supplies." The facts are quite otherwise. Of the whole transfer of wheat from the exporting countries to the importing countries, the United Kingdom, though the largest individual buyer, takes, roughly speaking, only about one-third.—I am, Sir, &c., EDWARD PAUL. 8 Brunswick Street, Liverpool.
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