Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/444

Rh 414 C K N TRADE foreign trade in corn, and the changes in the principal sources of foreign supply since 1846, as well as the effect of this unlimited competition on British agriculture and on the home trade in corn, and then to add some information as to the relation of home and foreign supply, expenses of transport, and other incidents of the trade in various prin cipal centres. Quantities and Sources of Foreign Supply of Corn in 1841-45 and 1871-75. The following are the average annual quantities of corn and flour imported into the United Kingdom in the five years preceding 1846, by the various countries which were then importers 1 : Wheat. Barley. Oats. Wheat Meal and Flour. NORTHERN EUROPE. Russia Qrs. 145,601 Qrs. 7,188 Qrs. 99,569 Cwts. 13 Sweden. , 3,423 13,410 52,259 Norway 2 252 847 302 Denmark 95,435 208,191 54,450 949 Prussia 634,124 120,877 45,879 2581 Germany 190,449 63,306 68,195 2999 Holland , 14,784 1,448 42,339 101 Belgium 2,145 1,287 1,529 3 SOUTHERN EUROPE. France 119,636 19,080 3 575 35,523 Portugal 1,049 111 75 Spain 24,018 1,455 28 i Italy... 199,445 488 117 870 MEDITERRANEAN. Malta 25,783 4,716 1 Morea and Greek Islands. 2,999 8,958 4,968 1 15,867 1,276 Palestine 196 Tunis 9 120 TRANSATLANTIC. British North America... United States 27,345 23,105 2,^55 3,183 1 062 437,920 202 134 Peru and Chili 2 705 River Plate 568 509 OTHER COUNTRIES. Australia 3 656 97 East Indies 1,211 3 1 A.O 405 Channel Islands 1 906 1 118 185 386 Cape of Good Hope 51 3 Average annual import... Average annual duty- ) paid home consump- &amp;gt; tion. ) 1,544,467 1,298,770 451,849 440,958 373,191 333,678 694,899 571,997 The most cursory observation of these figures will disclose results surprising to the present generation. It is to be remarked, for example, that down to 1846 Prussia and other countries of Germany supplied more than one- half the whole import of wheat into the United Kingdom, that the little country of Denmark had greatly more traffic in export of grain to British ports than the whole Russian empire, and that the transatlantic trade in wheat and flour or other corn with the United Kingdom, apart from Canada, had barely begun to exist. Nor can it fail to be noticed how wide-spread the commerce in corn had become even in these circumstances, and that it was usual to send cargoes of wheat and flour to England from places so distant as Chili and La Plata, and Australia and the East Indies. The statistics of the corn trade have become much more voluminous since 1846, and it is necessary to give some distinction to wheat and wheat flour, and the sources of their supply. It has also followed from the great trade in foreign grain that the measure should be weight, and not 1 Compiled from the parliamentary returns of &quot;Revenue, Popula tion, aud Commerce,&quot; Sessions 1843-47. quantity in local bushels or quarters. The Board of Trade for many years has thus given its returns of wheat and other raw grain, as well as meal and flour, in cwts. The cwt. would be equal to two bushels of 56 ft ; but the weight of a bushel being usually 61 ft, the quarter (or eight bushels) is 448 ft. The following are the average annual quantities of corn and flour imported into the United Kingdom in the five years 1871-75 : Russia Denmark , Germany (Prussia included).. France Austrian Territories Turkey and Roumania Egypt United States Canada Chili Other Countries .. Wheat. Cwts. 11,755,591 304,838 3,552,059 1,149,119 68,997 918,452 1,373,947 17,653,329 3,235,551 1,273,399 2,397,787 Wheat Meal and Flour. Cwts. 851,475 1,091,924 1,936,599 387,228 1,105,425 Average annual import 43,683,069 5,372,651 Average annual re-export 490,653 106,579 Other Grain from all Countries. Barley. Oats. Pease. Beans. Cwts,. ..11, 067, 067 11,667,679 1,387,021 2,943,249 Indian Com or Maize. 19,653,493 The import of foreign wheat and flour into the United Kingdom has increased more than sevenfold, and of all foreign grain nearly ten-fold, in the thirty years of free trade. The United States, from a small and unsteady commerce in grain, have risen to the first place, not only in wheat and flour, but in Indian corn, of which they contribute two-thirds of the supply. Russia stands second on the list, the great bulk of her export of wheat be ing now received from the southern ports of the empire. Canada, while scarcely sustaining its former supply of flour, has increased its average annual export of wheat to the United Kingdom from 110,000 cwts. to 3,230,000 cwts. The trade in corn has not only been extended over vast territories in various quarters of the world which thirty years ago were comparatively uncultivated or absolute deserts, but no former exporting country appears to have lost ground. All have shared more or less in the general progress, though a decline in wheat is perceptible from Denmark and other countries on the northern verge of the wheat region, which now require more for home con sumption. The increased import of barley, which is not so great as that of wheat, but still remarkable, comes chiefly from Northern Europe and France. It will be observed, from the figures denoting the ratio in which foreign supplies were taken up in the home consumption and the overplus sent to other markets in the two quinquennial periods above compared, that the re-export of foreign grain and flour from the United Kingdom has not increased with the magnitude of the supplies, but on the contrary has much diminished. This result can only be attributed to the organization of the trade, and the intelligence with which this vast move ment of grain is directed. Effect of Foreign Competition on British Agriculture and Corn-Production. The acreage of the various crops, and the numbers of live stock in the United Kingdom, are now given with all desirable accuracy in the annual agri cultural returns, for which the country is indebted to a motion in the House of Commons in 1862 by Mr Caird. 1 1 Mr Caird, afterwards M.P. for Stirling, a landowner and prac tical agriculturist, travelled through Ireland on a tour of inquiry in the year immediately subsequent to the great failure of the potato crops, and in 1850-51 visited nearly every county in England as the commissioner of the Times. He has since pursued the same course of investigation with practised powers of judgment, which have been well verified in the actual results of the corn trade in the United