Gambling in Farm Produce. 
299 
Arguments in Defence of the System. 
First let us see wliat is said in defence of the system, and 
in opposition to the Anti-Option Bill. One of the most re- 
doubtable defenders is Mr. Albert C. Steevens, the Editor of 
Bradstreet's, from whose article in the American Quarterly 
Journal of Economics I have already quoted. The article was 
written before the Anti-Option Bill was introduced, and before 
the agitation against the option system had assumed the import- 
ance which it has now attained. Apparently it had not occurred 
to Mr. Steevens when he wrote that the strongest argument 
against the system was that it tended to reduce prices, for he 
takes pains to plead that the system is an advantageous one as 
far as the consumer is concerned. He says : — 
A broad view of the equities of trade in this line (wheat) must place 
especial emphasis on the need for all natural or artificial aids or devices 
tending to cheapen the cost of flour to the consumer. 
Again he says in reference to a wheat corner that had been 
attempted shortly before he wrote : — 
While, therefore, the extra prices paid for grain by speculators — par- 
ticipants in the clique movements of Chicago and San Francisco — were in 
fact distributed among farmers in the West and North-west and on the 
Pacific coast, the price for wheat averaged much lower than it would have 
been likely to except for the attempts to corner, which reflects itself in 
cheaper bread for millions. 
He denies that the system is one of mere gambling in prices. 
All future contracts, he says, in New York and Chicago con- 
template the actual delivery of the grain, and the intermediate 
re-sales of options and futures he regards as practically transfers 
of the grain, although there is no actual transfer. In summing- 
up the advantages of the system, he declares that “ it furnishes a 
ready market to the producer who can no longer carry necessary 
surplus stocks ; it affords a means of transporting wheat from 
far-distant countries at a fixed price delivered at a minimum of 
loss through fluctuations of prices while in transit ; it enables 
the trade to collect enormous stocks of wheat and carry them 
over from seasons of plenty to seasons of scarcity without losses 
to producers, millers, or consumers (when considered over con- 
siderable periods of time) ; that the tendency is to equalise prices 
the world over ; and that in the long run these results have 
enured to the advantage of the consumer, because, like any 
other improvement in production or distribution, the elaborate 
organisation of trade cheapens the product for him.” 
Mr. Steevens admits that there are numbers of traders in the 
