THE GRAIN TRADE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IV, Issue 141, 14 May 1884, Page 2

THE GRAIN TRADE.

The London correspondent of the Canterbury Times, writing under date, February 28th, says : — The grain trade has been gradually sinking throughout the month to a lower level of values ) what the lowest depth tuny be I cannot pretend to say — there is positively nothing on which to base an opinion. Values are now at altogether unprecedented and un-dreamed-of ratts, and, so far as I can see, there is nothing to hinder them from going down lower still. New Zealand wheats are anything between 22s and 43->, and sound, sweet Persian wheats are as low as 265. Prices of this sort are so unprecedented that there is nothing to judge by. When things are at their worst we know they must mend, i v there is now no more confidence m things being at their worst than there was when values were 5s higher. The fact is, the American ftour is crushing the very life out of the trade, and, low as pr?ce< are, millers can with difficulty buy wheat to produce a competing article. White wheats of fine quality are certainly scaice m our market, and there art* signs winch lead me to think, that the English crop is well nigh exhausted. In ad dition to this, the new crop of Californian white wheats is coming to hand very unsatisfactorily the quality I'uing indifferent ; the off-coast value to-day is barely 40s. But the Australian crop is large and good, and it will soon lie here, so that there seems to be no change for a rise m values m any way. The Black Sea ports are open again from the mild season, and m about two months the whole of the 1883 crop of Northern Russia will be coining from Baltic pores m steamers which occupy only a few days m transit. 1 see no chance for improvement outside a war o- a miracle.