GRAIN AND PRODUCE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2020, 14 August 1880, Page 3

GRAIN AND PRODUCE.

Before proceeding to review the transactions of the week, it may not be out of place to give our readers the opinion of American millers on the transactions of the "grain ring" in that country, as set forth by the Hon. George Bain in his address to the National Association of American Millers, on the Ist June 1 isfc, at Cincinnati :—" Collateral with the ill-effects that may come on us from the railway monopoly, is the subject of grain gambling, which has been so terribly detrimental to the producing and milling interests of the country the past year. If any of you could suggest any means, legislative or other, by which a stop could be put to it, you would benefit the world. The ' ring* that was so successful in manipulating the wheat crop of 1878, have worked it so much more scientifically this year, that while putting-money into their own pockets they have certainly taken ten times as much from the producers in the United States, by compelling the European consumer to seek other grain producing countries that were willing to market their surplus at a fair price. You all know that while our exports of flour are some fifty per cent, greater than they ever were before, the millers' bank account, as a rule, is somewhat more attenuated than it was a. year ago. I see no remedy except in these operators losing so much that they will turn their attention to something else. The rumours of the ' collapse' of the ' American Ring,' current in the newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic, have not been well founded. I doubt if they do not hold to-day as much wheat as they did at the commencement of the season, and if they have not made ten times the amount by _ the scientific process of ' milking' they practised this year, than they did by their ' bnll dog' policy of last." The foregoing remarks are so much to the point that comment is useless. We shall, in all probability, see a repetition of the fcientific process referred to during the season now opened. Business has been quiet, but rates are firmly maintained. In wheat several small parcels have been sold at up to 43 for really good milling samples. Flour has had a fair share of attention at .£lO 10s, but millers are dieinclined to back large orders at the price. Oats show come good siz?d sales of milling quality at Is 6d to Is 7d, but feeding sort 3 are quiet at Is 3d. Barley quotations are mora or less nominal, sellers baing disinclined to accept ruling rates. A fair business ha 3 been done in potatoes at 22s €d to 253 at country stations, buyers as a rule being very particular about quality. Dairy produce ia without quotable alteration, and the same may be said of hams and bacon.