OUR DAILY BREAD.

Westport Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1141, 13 January 1874, Page 4

OUR DAILY BREAD.

[WESTPORT EVKNMfO STAR.]

TUB market price of the four pound loaf is in .every mouth a household word. It interests all householders and providers for hungry humanity, and all influences tending to cause fluctuations in the price are scanned more closely than any other items of passing news. In this particular por,tiou of Her Britannic Majesty's wide dominions, the round and level shilling is the standard rate of exchange for the baker's merchandise, and the rise and fall of the flour market, or the oft recurring news items that in such and such a place bread is down again to sevenpeuce, or up to eightpence three farthings, affects not the monthly bill whereon in startling white and black, pater familias find noted the daily consumption of " cottages " and •' crusties." Still all affecting, even in the abstract, the price of bread is of interest, and as tending thereto in indirect degree the statements in the subjoined extract from the Saturday Review re the food prospects of the United Kingdom for 1873-71, will excite attention. The extracts are reliable and concur with statemen-s made by other leading English journals. England's deficit in wheat, The Saturday. Review observes, " is probably 12 million quartets, aud that of France 0, or together IS millions. England, the only buyer in the past year, has imported from all other countries, France included, nearly 13 millions of quarters of wheat. The two countries now require that quantity and fully 5 millions more between them. The question is, can this quantity be obtained ? It is too soon to give an accurate or a complete answer, but enough is known to enable us to say that, unless America has a crop enormously in excess of last year, the quantity cannot be obtained. America has a good crop—a better crop in the States on the side of the Atlantic than last year, though it is doubtful whether the States at the side of the Pacific have so much ; it is too much however, to expect America to more than double her exportation of last year. It is improbable, if not impossible, that she can do so. Either France or England must then go short. There will be active competition between the merchants of the two nations whereever wheat is to be had, and the result of the competition will be to raise prices Bread muse be dear; certainly dearer than in the past year, and perhaps very dear. There is only one encouraging feature in the prospect — namely, the probability that the potato crop will be the largest and soundest that has been gathered for many years Nothing reduces the consumption of bread so much as a plentiful supply of this vegetable, and it is to be hoped that the promise that it will largely take the place of bread this year will be realised. Whoever goes short, this country will not starve ; but we shall have to pay a high price for our loaf." Incidentally it may beremarkedthatthc potato crop in many parts of Britain has fallen short, and the press already suggests that Australian potatoes, like Australian meats, will fiud profitable sale in the Home markets.