The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1892. WHEAT PROSPECTS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XIII, Issue 2580, 2 February 1892, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1892. WHEAT PROSPECTS.

The anticipations contained m Home correspondents letters' which we have published during the last few clays, as to the future of the wheat market, are so different to the news brought by later telegram?, and the question of what price wheat will be during the next few months is of such paramount interest, that an inquiry into tiie position is necessary, We publish to-day an extract from a letter dated London, November 26, the writer of which— one of the best-informed of London correspondents—anticipated that before Christines the best New Zealand wheat would be selling at 50s a quarter m London. Since then, until the last few days, the market has had a distinctly downward tendency. When we come to look at the forces that have been m operation it become? a matter of surprise that quotations did not fall still lower than those advised by cable. Writing from New York on .November 18, the correspondent of the •' Economist " gives the wheat exports from the United States during the month of October as 14,088,229 bushels, and flour 1,115,358 barrels, as compared with 3,100,355 bushels of wheat and 802,170 barrels of (lour m October 1800, while shipments still continued on the upward grade. Comparing like totals for three months— August, September, and October—it is found that 64,503,187 bushels of wheat and 3,944,101 barrels of flour were shipped this year, against 14,804,072 bushels of wheat and 3.165,327 barrels of flour m 1890. As an illustration of the way m which the American farmers had been getting rid of their wheat, a bulletin of the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincey Railway Company was cited to the effect that it could accept no other consignments of grain for Chicago or other eastern points at present, having already ten miles of cars on the tracks awaiting shipment. The resolution that we were told had been come to by the farmers at the close of the harvest, to combine and hold their wheat m reserve, seems to have been abandoned, and instead phenomenal efforts made to realise on the grain. The shipping m United States ports was tjuite unequal to deal with the immense supplies that came forward, but the high freights offered later brought a large influx of vessels, so th*t by the end of December, or early m January, a very considerable proportion of the States' surplusage of wheat would be placed on or on the way to British and European markets, taking the previous three months' exports, as given above, into account. These immense supplies were more than sufficient to have caused the temporary fall m the London market, and another cause, the official denial that there was any real famine m Russia, had doubtless some effect. Imports of wheat from Russia to the United Kingdom m the first six months of lasi year amounted to 2,198,786 quarters, and if the prohibition of the export of grain from Russia continue for another five months this quantity will have to be replaced by imports from some other country. The Continent of Europe, too, has pressing wants; and taking a full view of the position there is a consensus of opinion that prices will be firmer before the next European harvest.