Page:EB1911 - Volume 12.djvu/341

Rh cents per bushel, or 7s. per ton, 2240 &#8468;. In Table No. 71 the cost of transportation is compared year by year with the export price of the two leading cereals in the States as follows:—

Wheat and Corn—Export Prices and Transportation Rates compared.

The farmers of the United States have now to meet a greatly increased output from Canada—the cost of transport from that country to England being much the same as from the United States. So much improved is the position of the farmer in North America compared with what it was about 1870, that the transport companies in 1901 carried 17 bushels of his grain to the seaboard in exchange for the value of one bushel, whereas in 1867 he had to give up one bushel in every six in return for the service. As regards the British farmer, it does not appear as if he had improved his position; for he has to send his wheat to greater distances, owing to the collapse of many country millers or their removal to the seaboard, while railway rates have fallen only to a very small extent; again the farmer’s wheat is worth only half of what it was formerly; it may be said that the British farmer has to give up one bushel in nine to the railway company for the purpose of transportation, whereas in the ’seventies he gave up one in eighteen only. Enough has been said to prove that the advantage of position claimed for the British farmer by Caird was somewhat illusory. Speaking broadly, the Kansas or Minnesota farmer’s wheat does not have to pay for carriage to Liverpool more than 2s. 6d. to 7s. 6d. per ton in excess of the rate paid by a Yorkshire farmer; this, it will be admitted, does not go very far towards enabling the latter to pay rent, tithes and rates and taxes.

The subject of the rates of ocean carriage at different periods requires consideration if a proper understanding of the working of the foreign grain trade is to be obtained. Only a very small proportion of the decline in the price of wheat since 1880 is due to cheapened transport rates; for while the mileage rate has been falling, the length of haulage has been extending, until in 1900 the principal wheat fields of America were 2000 m. farther from the eastern seaboard than was the case in 1870, and consequently, notwithstanding the fall in the mileage rate of 50 to 75%, it still costs the United Kingdom nearly as much to have its quota of foreign wheat fetched from abroad as it did then. The difference in the cost of the operation is shown in the following tabular statement, both the cost in the aggregate on a year’s imports and the cost per quarter:—

Quantity of Wheat and Wheaten Flour (as wheat) imported into the United Kingdom from various sources during the calendar year 1900, together with the average rate of freight. 1900.

Comparing these figures with a similar statement for the year 1872, the most remote year for which similar facts are available, it will be found that the actual total cost per quarter for ocean carriage has not much decreased.

Quantity of Wheat and Wheaten Flour (as wheat) imported into the United Kingdom from various sources during the calendar year 1872, together with the average rate of freight. 1872.

N.B.—A trifling quantity of Californian and Australian wheat was imported in the period in question, but the Board of Trade records do not distinguish the quantities, therefore they cannot be given. The freight in that year from those countries averaged about 13s. per quarter.

The exact difference between the average freight for the years 1872 and 1900 amounts to about 2s. 11d. per quarter (480 &#8468;), a trifle in comparison with the actual fall in the price of wheat during the same years.

The following data bearing upon the subject, for selected periods, are partly taken from the Corn Trade Year-Book:—