COMMERCE IN MATZE GRAIN 519 



maize amounted in 1906, which was a "bumper" crop year, chap, 



to 3,928,947,000 bushels, i.e. 1,100,237,180 muids of 200 lbs. 

 South Africa's greatest competitors in the maize trade are 

 the United States of America and Argentina. The former 

 produces 2,927,416,000 bushels, or nearly 820,000,000 (eight 

 hundred and twenty million) muids, which is 74-5 per cent of 

 the total. At 8s. per muid this is worth .£328,000,000, or many 

 times the annual gold production of South Africa. Yet the 

 United States exports (1909) under 11,000,000 muids, or 

 about 1 -4 per cent of her crop, and every year the percentage 

 exported grows less. This is because home demands are in- 

 creasing, while climatic conditions prevent a corresponding in- 

 crease in the area of production. 



Argentina produces less than 55,000,000 muids, and ex- 

 ports about 50 per cent of the crop. As her population 

 increases, more will be consumed locally for stock food and 

 manufacture. There has been a marked drop in the export 

 from Argentina, as compared with that of any one of the three 

 years 1904, 1905 and 1906. 



Accompanying this fall in the exports from our com- 

 petitors, we find the European demand steadily increasing ; 

 new uses are being found for maize every day, for stock food 

 and in the arts and manufactures. This means that either the 

 price of maize will rise, or new fields for its production must 

 be found ; but if the price increases it will tend to restrict the 

 demand. 



In addition to the United States and Argentina the prin- 

 cipal sources of supply at the present time are : South- 

 east Europe (Austria-Hungary and Roumania), Egypt, South 

 Africa, Australia, and Mexico. No other large areas of the 

 world seem to have climatic conditions ideally suited to maize 

 production. Of these countries South Africa is the only one 

 in which there seems any prospect of a large increase of acre- 

 age in maize. She has an ample average rainfall, coming at 

 the right season of the year, and phenomenally dry winter 

 weather for the natural production of the quality of grain most 

 suitable for shipment. 



South Africa, therefore, has a great opportunity for com- 

 peting for the trade in a commodity the demand for which is 

 steadily increasing, while the supply is tending to decrease, 



xu. 



