THE HARVEST AND THE PRICE OF BREAD.
FEW domestic questions are just now more important than the Price of Bread. The average price of wheat is at the present time more than forty per cent. higher than it was this time last year, and if it rises higher still, or if it remain just about its present level, the consequences cannot fail-to be very serious, For nearly four years now the country has been suffering from a slackened demand for its productions, wages have been falling in many departments of trade, and work is in not a few cases more difficult to obtain now than it was a year ago. Not the industrial or artisan classes only have suffered, but the professions and the moneyed classes as well. There have been pinching and a difficulty in making ends meet in nearly every class below that of the very wealthy. People with families and only moderate incomes have felt the pressure of the hard times perhaps as much as most, and were bread to grow very dear after a long spell of hard times, there might be much social misery. Not only so, but dear bread next winter would mean a serious check to the recuperative process which may now be going on in many departments of trade. It would lessen the buying-power of communities nearly everywhere, and in every way do harm, It is of the last importance, therefore, to know, in a general way, what the bets are and what they portend.
Wheat is now clearer than it has been, we believe, for many years, and there are, of course, those who say that it must get dearer yet. The home harvest is said to be generally below the average. We have had all through the middle and northern parts of the island a most tempestuous season, crops will be exceptionally late and on many soils exceptionally poor, and altogether the outlook is gloomy. Add. to the position at home the fact that the French harvest is probably but barely equal to the requirements of the country, at the very best view, and that it is therefore not unlikely that France may have to bo a considerable buyer abroad ; that the yield in Spain is, though showing a surplus, not equal to expectation ; that the Russian crop, though good, is likely to be difficult to get at, through the war, and that all supplies from the valley of the Danube are cut off through the same cause,—and we have a serious conjunction of causes all tending to support the view that bread may be dear. The most favour- able estimate of the home wheat crop which we have seen— that of Mr. H. Rains-Jackson, no inconsiderable authority —gives us barely 12,000,000 quarters, or hardly half what we require for food and stock purposes ; and if the harvests of Europe are, with the exception of that of Hungary, either indifferent or inaccessible, it is evidently a serious problem to know whence this deficiency is to be supplied, In view of the difficulty, many do not hesitate to predict that wheat, and therefore bread, will be very much dearer before the winter is over than it is now.
We do not agree with this view, and for a variety of reasons. To begin with, the present price of wheat is a speculative one. It began to rise at the time when Russia declared war on Turkey, on the usual and as regards most of Europe old- fashioned notion that war must make corn dear. The maximum price was attained in the middle of May last, and since then it has gone gradually downward, till within the last fortnight there has been a considerable , fall, As the harvest prospects of Europe became known, therefore, and as the home yield was seen to promise to be a low one, wheat fell in price. Its speculative rise could not be better proved. And so far has the war been from retarding supplies from Europe, that we have received more wheat from Russia and Germany this year than in either of the previous two years, while the shijsments from Roumania and Turkey have fallen little short of last year, and are still above those of 1875. All the difference that the war has made has been to change the routes by which much of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian corn has come, and to quicken their exports where transport of any kind was possible. That may not be so another year, of course, but it has been so thus far, and therefore unless the causes for the dearness of wheat lay outside Europe, there was no good ground for the late rise. It was a speculation, unsupported by the situation of the trade. From all that is as yet known, moreover, it seems likely that there will be no severe deficiency in Europe this season, except 'in Bulgaria and here, Russia is likely to he able to export a considerable quantity of grain, and the exports from Austro-Hungary are already active, with the prospect of a continuance of the activity. These surpluses and that of Spain may safely be counted on to neutralise the deficiencies in France and Turkey. But what of the English sources of supply 1 We want, it may be conceded, in round figures at least 11,000,000 quarters of wheat between now and this time next year. Where is it to be had? The United States alone profess to be able to supply the whole of this immense quantity. They claim to have a surplus of exportable grain of over 12,000,000 quarters, and this they will be ready to let us have at a price, This is merely the official estimate, it is true, and may therefore be falsified, but there can be no doubt that the American surplus will be very large in nearly all the States of the Union except California. And taking the surplus at merely two-thirds of this total, we have still an enormous reserve there whence to draw supplies to fill up our deficiency,—and the United States are not the only extra-European sources to which we have to trust. We may count upon receiving a certain amount from Canada, where the harvest prospects are also good ; and Egypt will, whatever the rise of the Nile, have, at all events, some to send. Then there are the Australian colonies and Chili to look to, and above all, British India, whose exports of wheat are rapidly assuming large dimensions. From all these sources it may be safely reckoned that we can obtain, if we choose, from three to four million quarters of wheat, at a moderate estimate. Between these sources of supply and such portions of the European surplus as we can buy, it appears obvious that there is no need to apprehend a scarcity. Not only so, but in our view there is no real justification for present prices, and the markets through the country indicate
that the general opinion tends to indorse that view. The market price of wheat ought, unless present indications are very much wide of the truth, to be much nearer 58s. than 68s. per quarter, and bread should, therefore, be nearly as cheap as it was six months ago. For we must remember that there are other considerations to be taken into account in discussing our position relatively to the supply of food. Other grains may not enter so largely into the food of the people as they pro- fitably might do, but they have a considerable influence on general prices, and the general testimony is that the oats and barley crops of the United Kingdom and Ireland are likely to be above the average. Harvest will be very late in Scotland, but the crops so far promise pretty well, and if fine weather prevails for the next few weeks, there may be an excellent yield. Tine, the terrific floods which have prevailed there for the past few days have done some damage, but we may hope that they have hardly as yet affected the general position of crops. Nor is the yield of wheat certain to be so wretched as many make out. The ears are pretty well filled, though the straw is often short, and were there but favourable harvest-weather, the supply of home wheat might soon prove sufficiently large and fine to bring prices down. Then, again, the root crops are all promising, if we except a hint of blight amongst potatoes, which has not yet come to much. Hay has boon everywhere good, and the meadow grass is magnificent. The larger the root crops, the less pressure on grain as food for cattle, and the better the potato crop, the more readily should we get cheap bread, for the potato enters heavily into the composition of broad.
These are but a few of the considerations which might easily be adduced in support of the view that wheat is now too dear, and that it ought not to be very dear next winter. The war bug- bear is a delusion now-a-days, and in the present state of the trade communications with all parts of the world. What a province or two in Europe cannot yield, a province in India, or a colony in Australia, or a State in America can easily make up ; and so great are the equalising forces of modern production and modern intercommunication in this direction, that hardly anything short of EL bad harvest season all over the Northern hemisphere should now-a-days cause the price of wheat to rise forty per cent. Events may, of course, occur still to modify the facts regarding our present harvest. There may be bad weather, late and ill-gathered crops, and a difference of half-a- million quarters in the yield from the estimate we have given, but on the whole, as now seen, the tendency is the other way. The yield of wheat may be better than has been estimated, and the general condition of the crops of the country—with the partial and doubtful exception of Scotland—is certainly favourable, and hardly any change in circumstances that can now occur ought, as far as we can judge, to put the price of wheat up.
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