THE PRESENT POSITION 59 



Note as to the Present Position. 



At the present moment/ owing to the delay in the 

 issue of the Report, these figures may be held not to 

 represent the actual state of affairs. The wheat area of 

 1896 was 1,693,957, arid the produce 57,053,000 bushels, 

 whereas in 1895, the corresponding area was 1,417,483, 

 and produce 37,176,000 bushels. The value of the crop 

 of 1896 at an average price of 26s per quarter was 

 ;^9,27i,ii2, while in 1895 it was at 23s only ^^5,056,550. 

 Allowing for the value of displaced crops on the area 

 taken from those crops in 1896 and restored to wheat, 

 an area of 276,474 acres, there would remain a very 

 substantial increase to the assets of corn growers on the 

 year, placing them obviously in a different position from 

 the terrible despair of 1892 to 1894, when English wheat 

 was being fed to cattle or pigs in more than one district. 



But the tendency of wheat has been again to fall, and 

 as there is also a downward or at any rate a stagnant 

 tendency in the prices of meat (the triennial average of 

 beef for 1894-6, is the lowest recorded, while mutton 

 showed but a minute improvement) and other produce, 

 we cannot think that the record of the position as given 

 in our evidence, and condensed in the reports, is in any 

 true sense out of date. 



Since the completion of the Report of the Commis- 

 sion there has been a remarkable rise in wheat, but 

 this is clearly due to temporary causes, and the careful 

 analysis of the prospects of foreign competition in the 

 Main Report of the Commission, makes it more rather 

 than less probable that competition will further increase 

 and inevitably lower prices. 



» May, 1897. 



