270 



Journal of Agriculture, Victoria. [10 May, 1916. 



remembered that the prices of wheat in Chicago and Winnipeg are below 

 the f.o.b. American prices. Chicago is over 1,000 miles inland from 

 New York, and Winnipeg about 1,750 miles from Montreal. 



The prices at the Chicago and Winnipeg markets correspond approxi- 

 mately to the prices the farmers of the United States and Canada obtain 

 for their wheat. 



Table V. 



Average Prices of Wheat per Bushel for Calendar Year in 

 Importing and Exporting Countries for the Ten Years prior 

 TO THE War 



Tiiese fi,gures, abstracted from the Statistical Annual, Rome, give the 

 average prices of wheat in four typical importing countries and four 

 typical exporting countries for the decade prior to the war. 



These figures are not strictly comparable, because they refer, of 

 course, to somewhat different qualities of wheat. The Melbourne prices 

 for Australian wheat, for example, are slightly above the London parity 

 of the bulk of imported wheat. They are, however, representative of 

 the bulk of the wheat sold at the ports referred to. 



It will be seen that the average price of imported wheat in Great 

 Britain for the ten years prior to the war was 4s. 5d. per bushel, and 

 the price in Paris, Rome, and Berlin was, approximately this price plus 

 the import duty (Germany, Is. 6d. per bushel; France, Is. 6jd. per 

 bushel; and Italy, Is. l^A. per bushel). 



That is to sat/, the exporting countries might exiject to get for wheat 

 shipped to Europe about 4,<t. bcl. per bushel at the port of delivery, and 

 that the price of wheat in Europe ivas this price phis an addition equal 

 to the import duty. 



The prices in the exporting countries were, as might have been ex- 

 pected, roughly, equal to this price le'^s the cost of ocean carriage, and 

 that the price would vary with the distance of the exporting port from 

 the world's markets. A feature of interest is the way in which prices 

 an-e levelled in normal times in different countries by the low cost of 

 freight. 



