DUTY ON WHEAT 103 



relatively to the home production, then the 

 readjustment of prices would probably cause 

 the whole or a part of the duty to fall on the 

 consumer, according to the greater or less rela- 

 tive importance of the quantity of the article 

 imported. 



The second grade of commodities includes 

 articles of food, of which wheat may be taken 

 as an example. The foreign wheat supply of 

 Great Britain is drawn from eight great areas, 

 scattered over five continents, in which there 

 is never wide-spread failure, but sometimes a 

 partially reduced supply, owing to drought, storm, 

 or locusts, in one or the other area. It is not 

 the farmer, but nature that controls the situation. 

 It would therefore be hopeless and useless for 

 any person or syndicate to try and arrange what 

 the world's wheat crop in any year is to be, 

 since no one knows a month beforehand what 

 that month will bring about in the way of 

 wholesale natural losses. What is observed then 

 is never any attempt to reduce the world's area 

 under wheat, but, on the contrary, a steady 

 annual increase of that area. 



If we watch proceedings in any one area, we 

 shall find that the farmer never knows, till he 

 threshes, what yield he has. All may look well, 

 and then, in five minutes, the farmer may be 

 " hailed out," losing his whole crop ; or, a sudden 

 night-fall of the thermometer may, at a particular 

 stage, lower the value of the crop two or three 

 grades. It is natural, under such circumstances, 

 for the farmer to do the best he can for himself, 



