The Temuka Leader TUESDAY, MARCH 27, 1888. THE PRICE OF WHEAT.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1716, 27 March 1888, Page 2

The Temuka Leader TUESDAY, MARCH 27, 1888. THE PRICE OF WHEAT.

It is, we are afraid, hopeless to expect any improvement in the price of wheat. We find that the cost of the carriage of wheat from NV.w York to the United Kingdom has fallen in fourteen years from 10s 6d per quarter to 2a 6d. In 1874 the rcte was 10s 6d, in 1879 6s, in 1885 ss, in 1886 4s 3d, and now it is just over 2a 6d. With the greater firmness in freight it is possible that the rate for wheat may stiffen, but it can never approach the old figures, and hence there is a per manent reason for the lower price of wheat. There is in this fact a lesson for us in this colony. Instead of the cost of carriage to England getting less in this colony it is increasing, and pressing heavily on the grain industry. It is this year greater than it ever has been before, and it is to high freights the low prices are partly due. We have had it constantly dinned into our ears that if we put on protective duties we should have no ships visiting our shores, and no facilities for exporting wheat to England. The fact that the freight from America to Kngland has fallen from 10a 6d to 2s 6d proves how stupid this argu ment is. If further proof were necessary, we have only to refer to Victoria whose import* have risen from over 14 million pounds' worth of- goods in 1880, to over 20 million pounds' worth of goods in 1887. Protection has therefore increased the import trade of Victoria at the rate of nearly 1 million pounds per annum. The principal cause of the increase in the cost of transit from this country to England at present is that our import trade has fallen off, and th«

reason why it has fallen off is thatjpp' are poorer, and we do not consume l# much as we used to do in prosperous times. Our imports have fallen off by 2 million pounds' worth of goods during the past 10 years, and this is another very remarkable fact that completely upsets the calculations, of Freetraders, viz., protected Victoria is increasing her imports at the rate of 1 million a year; the imports of f reetrade New Zealand are decreasing at the rate of about half a million a year. It is therefore to the advantage of landowners to make the whole country prosperous. We have often told them they cannot get cheap labor and cheap goods, and at the same time get high prices for their own products. The thing is an utter impossibility, and the sooner they realise thia fact the better for themselves and for everyone else. Their policy Bhould be to use every endeavor to promote local prosperity, and that can only be done by industrial development. Everything points to one fact, and that is that it is doubtful whether we shall have high prices for grain again. The following is an extract from a paper read before the Norfolk Chamber of Agriculture recently by Mr G-eorge Barham, managing director of the Dairy Supply Company, Norwich: -r- " I am afraid that the wheat farmers have but a | poor look out. I happen to be a shareholder in the Hudson Bay Company, who own a good deal of land in Manitoba, and I see from their report l that the growth of wheat has been so extended there that, while in 1881 the total production was 1,360,000 bushels in all, the crop this year is expected to yield 10,000,000 bushels for export, leaving 2,351,000 for home consumption. This is largely due te the Pacific railway, and while railways are extending in Manitoba they are at 'the jame time opening up fresh districts in India, Euasia, and many other places. Ido not profess to be able to peer further into the future than anybody else, and I am old enough to have learnt that it is safer to prophesy after an event than before it, but there certainly seems no probabilty of an abatement in the influx of wheat and grain into this country." It is evident from this that the supply is getting greater than the demand, and consequently the price must remain low. Our farmers could therefore do I worse than turn their attention to I something else. The evil is that it would be as easy to drive a camel through the eye of a needle as to get a farmer to try anything outride the beaten track. We had in this' district a flax industry; it was just' carried to paying point, and it would doubtless have been a success /.on-ly that farmers could not be got to grow the flax. They preferred growing grain, and the result is not at all pleasant to themselves or to anyone else. The price of land must also come down, but that can only come about by the bankruptcy of the financial institutions which are keeping up the price of it, and it is not improbable that we mav lire to see it.