GAMBLING IN FOOD PRODUCTS. 81 



It would appear impossible that after such long aud close study the essayist should 

 oe ignorant of the fact that during the ninth decade the wheat and rye area of the world 

 increased but 14 percent, as against an increase in the wheat and rye eating population 

 of no less than 14 per cent. 



Because the people of America have not been called upon to sup])ly any consider- 

 able part of the rye required by the people of Europe the short-selling fraternity either 

 forget or are ignorant of the fact that when rye is scarce wheat nii:st very largely take its 

 place, and that the scarcity of one necessarily affects the demand ami price for tlie other. 

 as they seem to be ignorant of the fact that in dealing with the world's supply of bread- 

 stuffs they must be treated as one in order to measure the world's needs with any degree 

 jf accuracy. 



While the essayist tells us that in consequence of the Tzar's proclamation Russia is 

 likely to "have an unsold surplus and have lost valuable customers." does he not know 

 that a famishing man will not put seed in the ground that he needs to prevent immediate 

 starvation, and that such is to-day the condition of a great part of Russia, and that 

 the press is now teeming with the information that the sowings, in the famiue stricken 

 provinces, are thus being greatly curtailed, as I said they were likely to be as long ago as 

 oarly in June? 



There are those who anticipate a greatly reduced out-turn from Russian fields dur- 

 ing the near by years as the result of the present dearth of seed, the loss of great numbens 

 iif work animals, and the starvation or dispersion of no inconsiderable number of the 

 cultivators. 



If such anticipations are realized only in part it will be years before Russia need 

 mourn the lo.ss of customers, whose places, however, are likely to be taken by those whom 

 we now supply, but which Mr. Hutchinson agrees with me in saying must give place to 

 ■'the immense population that will occupy, before many years, the territory between the 

 Mississippi and the Atlantic." 



To convince us that we should let the short-seller determine the price for our prod- 

 ucts in such u way as not to scare away our customers we are told that: 



•'We might if excessively greedy for money, drive the consumers to using substi- 

 tutes, and that would i)e bad for both sides. In the interior of Cuba, San Domingo and 

 Brazil the poorer classes never see bread at all." 



While this is doubtless very interesting and instructive, it is difficult to see what is 

 the value, as customers of the wheat grower, of people who never see bread, and it seems 

 quite safe to say, judging from what we know of periods of scarcity in the past, that so 

 long as people can secure the means of purchase they will continue to eat bread, as did 

 the people of Britain in 1801 when wheat sold for $5.40 per bushel, aud when, as during 

 the first twenty years of this century, the English loaf was made from wheat that cost, 

 on an average of $2.60 per bushel, the price of the quartern loaf once rising to forty-seven 

 cents although it has recently sold for less than ten cents while wages, of the English ar- 

 tisan and laborer, are now much higher than in the earlier decades of the century. 



Even when wheat was selling at $5.40 per bushel the poor would not substitute the 

 Indian rice upon which, as a measure of relief, the government had thrown away a 

 Ijounty, to induce importation, of no less than $1,700,000 prefering to buy the high 

 priced wheat. 



By the way, does it not appear a little singular that Mr Hutchinson did u< t dis- 

 cover when he put wheat iip to two dollars a bushel in 1888 that "it would be bad for 

 both sides"? That, however, being mostly wind wheat, he probably felt justified in 

 acting upon the theory that as it could not be eaten the consumer would not be attected 

 although he likes to say that it did enhance the price of the poor man's loaf. 



The history of the entire past shows quite conclusively that the last thing to Ije dis- 

 pensed with is bread. If an economy in food becomes necessary such articles of diet as 

 are either less nutritive or more costly will first be dispensed with and it may not be 

 amiss to remind the short-sellers that when the necessity for substitution arises the sub- 

 stitutes are usually not obtainable in suflicient volume to afl'ord much relief and the very 

 fact of the substitution of a less desirable article tor one to which the consumer has al- 



