676 Agricultural Depression at Home and Abroad. 
thrown obscurity upon other causes of the fall in value. That 
other causes have helped materially to bring about so disastrous 
a decline, however, I have not the slightest doubt. Apart 
from the general fall in prices, references to Argentina and 
India explain why wheat has been affected more seriously by 
currency complications than anything else. Similarly wheat, in 
common with cotton, has been a commodity specially subjected 
to the depressing influence of the system of market gambling 
described in the Journal in 1893. 1 During the last four years 
of abundance the “ bears ” have had nothing to check their 
success in forcing prices lower and lower. At ordinary times 
they have an advantage over the “ bulls,” as explained in the 
article just alluded to; but when there is any doubt as to the 
available supplies of wheat being sufficient for the demands of 
the present or the near future, they are liable to be taught a 
lesson in caution occasionally if they presume too confidently 
upon their ability to “ hammer down ’’the price; whereas, for 
some time past, they have pursued their mischievous course 
without check and in perfect safety. If there had been no 
gambling system to make prices in America and Liverpool, in 
all probability the price of wheat would not have fallen nearly as 
much as it has sunk. 
From harvest, 1883, to the end of 1890, taking the period as 
a whole, there was no over-production of wheat in the world, 
and yet prices fell from 41s. a quarter in 1883 to 31s. lid. in 
1890. Nor was there any considerable change during that 
period, either in the expenses of production or in cost of transport, 
to account for the fall in price ; which, therefore, I attribute to 
the general appreciation of gold, the particular currency advan- 
tages of exporters from certain countries, and the market gambling 
system. In 1891, when very favourable anticipations as to the 
prospects of wheat growers were published, the effect of the gold 
premium in the Argentine Eepublic was only just beginning to 
tell materially upon the growth of wheat in that country, as it 
was not until that year that the premium rose above 200 per 
cent. The average for the year rose from 40 per cent, in 1888 
to 88 per cent, in 1889, to 161 per cent, in 1890, and to 277 per 
cent, in 1891 ; but time was needed for an increase in the area 
of the wheat crop, and it was not until 1891 that the exports 
exceeded 1,500,000 quarters. At that time, moreover, I had 
not become convinced of the inevitably depressing effect of the 
market gambling system. Three influences, then, combined to 
1 “ Gambling in Farm Produce,” Journal, 3rd Series, Yol. IV. Part II. 1893, 
p. 286. 
