Page 1 Advertisements Column 5

Gisborne Times, Volume IX, Issue 810, 27 January 1903, Page 1

Details have been announced of _an extensive scheme for electrical equipment which has beou adopted, by the Northeastern Bailway of England. Tenders havo been closed for the conversion of forty-one miles _of the aysteiu. This is the first practical step taken by any of the great English railways to supersede steam locomotion.

All told, the entire colony had last year only 168,000 acres of land under wheat, says the Auckland Herald, the estimated yield of which, some 4,000,000 bushels, did not equal the estimated annual consumption. As very nearly '2,000,000 bushels of wheat and flour were exported last year, the colony must have practically exhausted its reserves. Such exhaustion of reserves was, indeod, universal throughout the civilised world, which came nearer to universal famine than is altogether agreeable to contemplate. Had the great meteorological disturbances induced weather disastrous to the last wheat crops of the Northern Hemisphere and detrimental to the current crops of the South, civilisation would have been confronted by a most tremendous shortage, having only a few weeks’ bread supply in hand when the harvests started. Fortunately, the Canadian and American harvests were phenomenal and the Eurasian good, so much so that their overflowing granaries ftre read'to find outlet if? New Zealand induce £ bv w ot present mgn prices. The extreme prices recently experienced Wire the result of an extraordinary combination of circumstances, and though breadstuffs may not return to their former low quotation they cannot be held permanently at present figures. To this inevitable reduotion few householders will ,r - - . . it i 8t CQQtmllft , ’* e 0 f present high prices.