THE QUESTION OF WHEAT 



765 



Had this situation been discussed in the year 1866 or 1867, the 

 critic might have concluded that America and Egypt were destined 

 to fall out of the race as suppliers of wheat, and Russia, France, and 

 Chile were to be the future wheat-growing countries. Two years 

 later a new arrangement would have been found necessary, for Aus- 

 tria and Turkey, the United States and Egypt were the rising coun- 

 tries. So uncertain is a conclusion based upon a limited examina- 

 tion. Neither combination of countries would have been accurate, 

 for the decade 1870 to 1880 wrought a revolution in wheat produc- 

 tion the true extent of which it is even now difficult to appreciate, 

 and the effect of which is yet felt. A blow was struck at European 

 wheat interests from which they have never recovered, and from 

 which the probability is they never will recover. This revolution 

 may be studied in clear outline in the conditions in Great Britain. 



The last vestige of a duty on imported wheat in the United 

 Kingdom was removed in 1869. The duty of Is. per quarter, 

 which had been collected since 1849, could not have exerted any 

 influence in encouraging the culture of wheat in the kingdom. In 

 1867 the acreage under wheat was 3,367,876 acres, and the deliver- 

 ies of wheat in 170 towns, as reported to- the Government, were 

 2,724,673 quarters. The price of wheat as given in the gazette 

 was such as to encourage some expansion of acreage, but in two years 

 prices again tended downward, and acreage was contracted; so that 

 in 1875 the acreage returned was 3,342,481 acres, and the deliveries 

 were 2,515,098 quarters. To that year the conditions appeared 

 normal so far as the home wheat interest was concerned. 



A very different story is told by the imports. From 1871 to 

 1875 the average annual import was 43,756,956 hundredweight, 

 and from 1876 to 1880 it rose to 52,696,932 hundredweight, or 

 more than double the average import for 1861 to 1865. So large 

 an increase in demand could not be met by continental Europe, 

 though Russia did respond for two years, and at a rate which prom- 



