TEE ECONOMIC DISTURBANCES SINCE 1873. 777 



1881 to 1885, inclusive, was 436,000,000 bushels ; while for the ten 

 years preceding some of which supplied the heaviest demands for 

 exportation ever experienced the average was only 366,000,000 

 bushels. According to Mr. Neumann Spallart, a German statistician of 

 repute, the production of cereals in Europe doubled from 1869 to 

 1879 ; and in the case of Russia, her exports of wheat increased from 

 36,565,000 bushels in 1880 to 07,717,000 in 1884. According to figures 

 of the United States Bureau of Agriculture, the average production of 

 wheat in Europe, for the five years from 1875 to 1881, inclusive, "in- 

 creased some 50,000,000 bushels over the average of the ten years 

 preceding, which included several seasons of unusually low yield in 

 Western Europe." In 1862 the United States exported breadstuffs to 

 the value of $24,000,000 ; in 1872 the corresponding value was $87,- 

 000,000 ; and in 1880, $288,000,000 ; and if since this latter year there 

 has been a decline in the value of American cereal exports, it can not 

 be attributed to any impairment of ability to produce and export, if 

 sufficient inducements existed. Of the respective wheat-crops of the 

 United States for the years 1884-'86, 30 per cent in the form of 

 wheat and flour have been exported, the largest proportion ever re- 

 corded, except during the era of crop failures in Western Europe 

 i. e., 1878-1883. While, therefore, it is clear that the comparative 

 product of the heretofore great wheat-producing countries has not 

 diminished, recent experiences are also making it evident that the 

 world is hereafter to derive important supplies of wheat from sources 

 which a few years ago did not exist, or were regarded as of little 

 importance. For example, British India, which in 1880 exported 

 only 13,896,000 bushels, in 1885 exported 39,312,000 bushels, and 

 whose increase of wheat exports appears to be coincident with the 

 increase of the railway mileage of the country. During the same 

 period Australia and New Zealand, where a rapid growth of popu- 

 lation inevitably tends to divert agricultural industry from wool-pro- 

 ducing to wheat-growing, increased their exports from 13,999,000 

 bushels in 1880 to 19,466,000 in 1885 ; and the Argentine Republic, 

 from 5,772 bushels in 1881 to 3,986,000 in 1884. All the indica- 

 tions are, furthermore, that the increase of wheat supplies from new 

 sources is likely to be continuous and of great magnitude : from 

 India, whose internal and foreign commerce is yet only in its infancy, 

 but is developing with extraordinary rapidity under the influence of 

 railroad construction ; * from the great wheat region of Manitoba, to 



* " There is nothing more remarkable in the history of railway enterprise than the 

 development of the traffic that has occurred on Indian railways within the last ten years, 

 to go no farther back. In 1876 the total quantity of goods-traffic carried on all the rail- 

 ways of India was 5,750,000 tons. In 1886 the quantity was about 19,000,000 tons. In 

 the year 1876 the mileage open was 6,833 miles, so that the volume of goods-traffic 

 carried per mile was about 800 tons. In 1886 the mileage open was 12,376, so that the 

 average volume of traffic carried per mile was over 1,500 tons. The aggregate volume 

 of traffic in the interval had fully trebled, and the average traffic carried per mile open 



