THE ADELAIDE EXCHANGE.

Southland Times, Issue 1584, 28 May 1872, Page 3

THE ADELAIDE EXCHANGE.

«. Having been requested by same of mi 1 Canterbury friends, who are interested iii the establishment of a Corn Exchange ii Christen urch, to inform them how th< Exchange in Adelaide is managed, ] proceed to give what, I trust, may b< found a simple and useful description o the same. The building is private pro perty, with no pretension whatever tc architectural beauty. You enter it frorr the street, through a wide vestibule, or either side of which are the public telegraph offices ; a large notice-board on the right contains all the recent arrivals and departures of shipping at each of the principal Australian ports, whilst on the left are the meteorological reports [Jfrom various parts of the province, a large barometerandthermometer. The Exchange room is simply a large, plain-looking hall, with a number of newspaper stands, several small tables, well supplied with stationery, and several little desks with drawers, upon which the owners' names | are painted. Any person who chooses to pay his subscription, £2 2s per annum, can become a member, and have the use of all 'the papers, circulars, directories, &c. There are between 200 and 300 members, consisting for the most part of merchants, millers, wheat buyers, and brokers. Few country people are ever to be found there ; it is essentially a town institution, for townspeople ancl in mnrn like the reading-room of a Chamber of Commerce than anything else. Notwithstanding this, however, there is probably more wheat sold here every year than is grown in Canterbury in three years. Bat our grain trade is conducted on an entirely different system from yours, and it will perhaps prove interesting if I initiate your readei's into some of its mysteries. In the first place, it must be borne in mind that Adelaide has behind it a country of some 150,000 people, with an area, under crop to wheat of about 700,000 acres, and that much of this cultivated land is upwards of 100 miles distant from the capital. There are of course little towus here and there, such as Gawler, Kapunda, Kporinga, &c, , where the farmers obtain their stores, so that many of them do not come to Adelaide even once a year. In most of these country towns the storekeepers buy wheat, and some of the large millers, such as Hart, Dunn, and Duffield, have agents there ; to these the farmers sell, or to the local millers as the case may be. Some of our largest wheat buyers are country storekeepers. These men, living far away up country, require to be kept well informed as to the state of the Adelaide market, and have agents or brokers in town who supply them with the necessary information. The town merchants get orders to buy from Sydney or Melbourne or New Zealand, as the case may be, and come to the country wheat-buyers' agents to supply their requirements. These agents are to be found in and about the Exchange, and transactions representing thousands of pounds are concluded there every day. We will suppose that the merchant and the agent have agreed as to quantity and price ; the next step is to make out a contract. The wheat is sold as a fair average sample, and the buyer's agent at the port rejects what he does not consider up to the mark, the seller having to tender wheat till the stipulated quantity is made up ; the bags are paid for at current market rates, less 2d each, for stained or second-hand ones. Considering the large latitude allowed the buyer, it is astonishing how few disputes arise. It will be gathered from the foregoing that a farmer is seldom seen on Change. There is no market day upon which, he brings in his samples, and if he does so by any accident he has a difficulty in finding a buyer, because his quantity is too small to tempt a merchant. The farmer sells to the country wheat buyer, the country wheat buyer to an export merchant through a broker, and the merchant to his friends in the other colonies or in Europe. Sometimes outsiders having money to invest come in and buy largely for merely speculative purposes, holding the wheat in store at the port (store rent 2d a ton per week), these sell out again to the merchants generally through a broker. Of course, the country millers buy largely from the farmers, and they also store wheat for them, giving current market rates whenever they wish to sell. Country brands of flour are generally about £1 per ton below town brands, and very large parcels are sold on Change, also through the brokers. You must not suppose that when you see wheat quoted here at say 5s 9d a bushel, that it is the price the farmer gets for it. The quotation always means for large parcels of wheat delivered at the port, and the chances are that the wheat so sold has passed through two or three hands since it left the farmer's field. The wheat buyer in the country has made his profit out of it, so haa the broker in town, and so also perhaps tbe speculator who haa sold it to the merchant, which latter will get his profit probably out of a Sydney or New Zealand firm. As far as I can judge, one great reason of the high prices obtained here as compared with Canterbury, is, that there are far more buyers, and that tke wheat passes very early in the season out of the needy farmers' hands into the possession of those who can afford to hold it. Our merchants have to do for the most part with rich country buyers through their agents the brokers, whose business and interest it is to get the best possible price for their clients ; yours have to do with farmers direct, many of whom must sell, and are perhaps under obligations, and almost obliged to oiler their grain to one particular firm. I don't see how the establishment of a Corn Exchange is going to prevent this ; some three or four firms have the ball in their own hands, and it is not to be wondered at that they roll it for their own advantage. Three or four shrewd speculators, such as we have here, would soon alter matters greatly. — Correspondent of Lyttelton Times.