REPORT ON SHIPPING* AND PRICES. 77 



market at 12s. 4d. (only 4d. less), they pay but $1 CO per cental a 

 difference between last year and this of $1 10 against the California 

 farmer, when the difference should be but 4d., or less than eight 

 cents, making a clean shave of $1 02 on every cental, or over sixty 

 cents on every bushel. It seems that while these speculators pay 

 out but $5 more for freight, they pay $22 per ton less this year than 

 the last for wheat. 



But we are told by these wheat sharps, these bread buccaneers, 

 that the present low price of wheat in the California market is nec 

 essarily caused by the high price of freights, the increased charges 

 for shipping, and because they are obliged to pay 4, or $20 per 

 ton to Liverpool. Is this true? Is this the legitimate cause of de 

 pressing the price of wheat ? Let us prick this pretty bubble and 

 see it collapse. Twenty dollars per ton is one cent per pound. 

 Now, to offset for the high rates of freight now charged the farmer; 

 to have made last year s profits compare with those of this year, the 

 freight last year ought to have been forty cents a ton less than 

 nothing. But what were the actual freights paid last autumn? &quot;We 

 find it noted in the Daily Bulletin of November 15th, &quot;grain to 

 Liverpool direct, 2,&quot; and as high as 2 7s. 6d., or nearly $12 (ac 

 cording to a recent number of the Alta California), was paid during 

 that year. So that, instead of the buyers being able to pay us $2 70 

 per cental for wheat in San Francisco, by reason of its being carried 

 to Liverpool for nothing, they were paying ten dollars a ton or over, 

 or half a cent per pound; add which to the present price of wheat, 

 $1 60, and we have $2 10 per cental as the present value of wheat 

 in this market; and this is what the farmer ought now to receive, 

 and would receive, but for the disreputable &quot;rings&quot; formed to 

 monopolize the carrying trade. 



But do these bread buccaneers really pay 4 or $20 per ton freight? 

 It is well understood that the chief mogul of the buccaneers chartered 

 a large number of ships more than he was prospectively in need of 

 for legitimate purposes, at 2 to 3, and then pretended to re-char 

 ter them to his fellow-clansmen of the &quot;ring&quot; at 4 per ton, or 

 thereabouts. That s what makes this pretext of high freights, and 

 not the real scarcity of ships. There are numbers of disengaged 

 vessels in our harbor every week, and more arriving daily. Wheat 

 is now being shipped from Philadelphia to Liverpool, at $6 per ton, 

 and by steamer at that. Does this indicate a scarcity of shipping ? 



Here we find these remorseless speculators (if their re-charters are 

 genuine), making the snug sum of $5 or more on every ton, or 

 $5,000 on each ship of one thousand tons capacity, at the expense 

 of the farmer, to say nothing of the advance the speculators get in 

 buying wheat at $1 60 and selling it at over $3 per cental. No 

 wonder, under these circumstance, that we should see such para 

 graphs as the following, which we clip from a recent San Francisco 

 daily paper: 



&quot; It is a curious fact, and one which has been observed by not a 

 few, that when wheat is most wanted in this market, up go the Liver 

 pool quotations, and, encouraged by a healthier market, in come the 

 supplies; but on their arrival down go the Liverpool quotations, and 

 this market instantly responds. Those who manipulate the wires 



