44o Imports of Agricultural Produce in 1897. 



tion of foreign and colonial wheat was relaxed to the extent 

 of nearly 20,000,000 cwts., and it should be noted that con- 

 currently with this retrograde movement in the imports, there 

 has been an upward tendency in the prices recorded for wheat 

 in our markets. The contraction of the supply was due largely 

 to considerable diminutions in the cargoes from Argentina, 

 British East Indies, and Australasia, countries where the 

 harvest had been bad. From the first-named country only 

 933,100 cwts. were received, as compared with 1 1,400,000 cwts. 

 in 1895 ; while the Australasian contribution, which amounted 

 to 3,486,620 cwts. in the earlier year, and dropped to 6,500 

 cwts. in 1896, disappeared altogether last year. India, 

 too, under circumstances which are well known, sent us 

 only 572,760 cwts. in 1897, or nearly 8,300,000 cwts- 

 short of the quantity credited to her in 1895. Russia with a 

 delivery of 15,000,000 cwts. was also 8,000,000 cwts. below 

 the level she reached two years previously. From the 

 United States, on the other hand, we received 7,500,000 cwts. 

 more than two years previously, besides an additional supply 

 of wheat flour, amounting to nearly another million cwts. 



Russia considerably reduced her shipments of barley 

 to the United Kingdom during the past year, when she 

 was credited in the Trade Accounts with only 7,494,000 

 cwts., as compared with 13,281,157 cwts. in 1895, an ^ 

 9,245,400 cwts. in 1896. In the past three years our imports 

 of barley have fallen off to the extent of nearly 5,000,000 cwts., 

 and as this decline has been confined to the cheap Russian 

 variety, it is not, perhaps, unconnected with the remarkable 

 impetus given to the use of maize as a feeding stuff by the abun- 

 dant supplies of this grain placed on our markets by America 

 since 1895. In the course of the past twelve months, the aggre- 

 gate receipts of Indian corn or maize amounted to 53,785,000 

 cwts. as compared with 51,772,000 cwts. in 1896, and only 

 33,944,000 cwts. in the previous year. Nearly 75 per cent, of 

 the supply of this product in 1897 was shipped from the 

 United States, and its average declared value was 3s. 5^. per 

 cwt., or about is. lod. per bushel. 



Of dairy produce, including margarine and fresh or con- 

 densed milk, the importation during the past year repre- 

 sented a total disbursement, according to the declared values, of 



