THE PRICE OF WHEAT 159 
general trend from 1800 showed a rapidly falling 
tendency until the ‘‘thirties,’’ after which the average 
annual price was fairly stable. 
For the purposes of instituting a comparison between 
English and New Zealand prices, a more intensive study 
of price movements from 1860 will be made. 
At the close of the decade ending 1859, conditions had 
once more become normal after the disturbance caused 
by the Crimean War. In 1859 the price was 5s. 6d. 
per bushel, and conditions seemed to point to a falling 
tendency, but several circumstances postponed this 
tendency for almost 20 years. 
(a) The Period 1860-75. Rising Prices—The decade 
commencing in 1860 was a stormy one for the World, 
a number of minor European Wars, the American Civil 
War (1861-5), and the War between Austria and 
Prussia occurring in this period. The result of these 
disturbances was another series of price fluctuations, the 
average for the decade being 6s. 6d., and the trend rising 
slightly until the middle of the ‘‘seventies.’’ During 
the early ‘‘seventies’’ the wheat market was again 
disturbed by war. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1 
caused a rise in price with its subsequent reaction, the 
price in 1871 having risen to 7s. 1d., and falling after 
1878 to 5s. 7d. in 1875. 
Over this period from 1860-75 the price of wheat 
showed a general rising tendency, maintaining the slight 
rise which had set in in the early ‘‘fifties.’’ This rise 
was partly the result of the diminution in supplies 
caused by a series of wars and partly the result of the 
influence caused on the general level of prices by the 
increased supplies of gold. From 1849 to 1873 prices 
rose from 64 to 86 according to Jevons’s figures. Prof. 
Irving Fisher assigns the increase in gold production 
resulting from Californian and Australian gold dis- 
coveries and the rapid development of banking as the 
