MAY 179 



away, which is practically a day's journey for a man and horses. 

 Here the practice is that the seller must deliver to the purchaser 

 unless he despatches the stuff by train under special arrangement, 

 in which case he delivers at the station. To-day, too, the brown 

 mare produced her foal in safety. 



May 3. This morning Hood sold twenty-five coomb (twelve 

 and a half quarters) of wheat at forty-nine shillings a quarter, so 

 it seems that he was justified in refusing forty-eight shillings last 

 week. It is a curious advance upon the prices of recent years. I 

 wonder what would happen in this country in the event of a really 

 earnest and prolonged war between, let us say, Great Britain 

 opposed to France and Russia, which probably would entail 

 subsidiary wars in every quarter of the world. There is no great 

 bulk of wheat kept in England, as it is a commodity apt to 

 deteriorate in warehouses unless very carefully and scientifically 

 managed, and Governments seem to set their faces against any 

 system of national granaries, for reasons which are sufficiently 

 obvious and familiar to the student of Roman history. Pharaoh, 

 who was an autocrat living in a dry climate, with the assistance of 

 an exceptionally able and honest minister, was in a position to 

 manage such granaries satisfactorily, but I greatly doubt if this 

 would be so in the case of any given set of party politicians in 

 power and with the fear of an election before their eyes. As no 

 such stores do or are likely to exist, the possibilities in the event 

 of war are somewhat terrifying. Even if our fleet should prove 

 strong enough to keep the seas perfectly open against a combina- 

 tion of foreign Powers, which, in the opinion of many experts, such 

 as Lord Charles Beresford, seems doubtful, what fleets could 

 control the ingenious machinations of the foreign speculator in 

 grain? And if, owing to a variety of causes, corn went to a 

 hundred shillings a quarter, what would be the result in a country 

 full of some millions of independent ( and hungry) voters ? On 

 that black sheet of the future it is not difficult to imagine 

 three words, ominous as those of the writing on the wall. 



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