Bibliography.—For the Gawain Grail visits see the Potvin edition of thePerceval, which, however, only gives the Bleheris version; the second visit is found in the best and most complete MSS., such as 12,576 and 12,577 (Fonds français) of the Paris library.Diu Crône, edited by Scholl (Stuttgart, 1852). vol. vi. ofArthurian Romances(Nutt), gives a translation of the Bleheris,Diu CrôneandProse Lancelotvisits.TheConte del Graal, orPerceval, is only accessible in the edition of M. Potvin (6 vols., 1866-1871). The Mons MS., from which this has been printed, has proved to be an exceedingly poor and untrustworthy text.Parzival, by Wolfram von Eschenbach, has been frequently and well edited; the edition by Bartsch (1875-1877), inDeutsche Classiker des Mittelalters, contains full notes and a glossary. Suitable for the more advanced student are those by K. Lachmann (1891), Leitzmann (1902-1903) and E. Martin (1903). There are modern German translations by Simrock (very close to the original) and Hertz (excellent notes). English translation with notes and appendices by J. L. Weston. “Didot”Perceval, ed. Hucher,Le Saint Graal(1875-1878), vol. i.Perlesvauswas printed by Potvin, under the title ofPerceval le Gallois, in vol. i. of the edition above referred to; a Welsh version from the Hengwert MS. was published with translation by Canon R. Williams (2 vols., 1876-1892). Under the title ofThe High History of the Holy Graila fine version was published by Dr Sebastian Evans in the Temple Classics (2 vols., 1898). TheGrand Saint Graalwas published by Hucher as given above; this edition includes theJoseph of Arimathea. A 15th century metrical English adaptation by one Henry Lovelich, was printed by Dr Furnivall for the Roxburghe Club 1861-1863; a new edition was undertaken for the Early English Text Society.Quête du Saint Graalcan best be studied in Malory’s somewhat abridged translation, books xiii.-xviii. of theMorte Arthur. It has also been printed by Dr Furnivall for the Roxburghe Club, from a MS. in the British Museum. Neither of these texts is, however, very good, and the student who can decipher old Dutch would do well to read it in the metrical translation published by Joenckbloet,Roman van Lanceloet, as the original here was considerably fuller.For general treatment of the subject seeLegend of Sir Perceval, by J. L. Weston, Grimm Library, vol. xvii. (1906);Studies on the Legend of the Holy Grail, by A. Nutt (1888), and a more concise treatment of the subject by the same writer in No. 14 ofPopular Studies(1902); Professor Birch-Hirschfeld’sDie Sage vom Gral(1877). The late Professor Heinzel’sDie alt-französischen Gral-Romanecontains a mass of valuable matter, but is very confused and ill-arranged. For the Fécamp legend see Leroux de Lincey’sEssai sur l’abbaye de Fescamp(1840); for theVolto Santoand kindred legends, Ernest von Dobschütz,Christus-Bilder(Leipzig, 1899).
Bibliography.—For the Gawain Grail visits see the Potvin edition of thePerceval, which, however, only gives the Bleheris version; the second visit is found in the best and most complete MSS., such as 12,576 and 12,577 (Fonds français) of the Paris library.Diu Crône, edited by Scholl (Stuttgart, 1852). vol. vi. ofArthurian Romances(Nutt), gives a translation of the Bleheris,Diu CrôneandProse Lancelotvisits.
TheConte del Graal, orPerceval, is only accessible in the edition of M. Potvin (6 vols., 1866-1871). The Mons MS., from which this has been printed, has proved to be an exceedingly poor and untrustworthy text.Parzival, by Wolfram von Eschenbach, has been frequently and well edited; the edition by Bartsch (1875-1877), inDeutsche Classiker des Mittelalters, contains full notes and a glossary. Suitable for the more advanced student are those by K. Lachmann (1891), Leitzmann (1902-1903) and E. Martin (1903). There are modern German translations by Simrock (very close to the original) and Hertz (excellent notes). English translation with notes and appendices by J. L. Weston. “Didot”Perceval, ed. Hucher,Le Saint Graal(1875-1878), vol. i.Perlesvauswas printed by Potvin, under the title ofPerceval le Gallois, in vol. i. of the edition above referred to; a Welsh version from the Hengwert MS. was published with translation by Canon R. Williams (2 vols., 1876-1892). Under the title ofThe High History of the Holy Graila fine version was published by Dr Sebastian Evans in the Temple Classics (2 vols., 1898). TheGrand Saint Graalwas published by Hucher as given above; this edition includes theJoseph of Arimathea. A 15th century metrical English adaptation by one Henry Lovelich, was printed by Dr Furnivall for the Roxburghe Club 1861-1863; a new edition was undertaken for the Early English Text Society.Quête du Saint Graalcan best be studied in Malory’s somewhat abridged translation, books xiii.-xviii. of theMorte Arthur. It has also been printed by Dr Furnivall for the Roxburghe Club, from a MS. in the British Museum. Neither of these texts is, however, very good, and the student who can decipher old Dutch would do well to read it in the metrical translation published by Joenckbloet,Roman van Lanceloet, as the original here was considerably fuller.
For general treatment of the subject seeLegend of Sir Perceval, by J. L. Weston, Grimm Library, vol. xvii. (1906);Studies on the Legend of the Holy Grail, by A. Nutt (1888), and a more concise treatment of the subject by the same writer in No. 14 ofPopular Studies(1902); Professor Birch-Hirschfeld’sDie Sage vom Gral(1877). The late Professor Heinzel’sDie alt-französischen Gral-Romanecontains a mass of valuable matter, but is very confused and ill-arranged. For the Fécamp legend see Leroux de Lincey’sEssai sur l’abbaye de Fescamp(1840); for theVolto Santoand kindred legends, Ernest von Dobschütz,Christus-Bilder(Leipzig, 1899).
(J. L. W.)
1The etymology of the O. Fr.graalorgreal, of which “grail” is an adaptation, has been much discussed. The Low Lat. original,gradaleorgrasale, a flat dish or platter, has generally been taken to represent a diminutivecratellaofcrater, bowl, or a lostcratale, formed from the same word (see W. W. Skeat, Preface toJoseph of Arimathie, Early Eng. Text Soc).—Ed.
1The etymology of the O. Fr.graalorgreal, of which “grail” is an adaptation, has been much discussed. The Low Lat. original,gradaleorgrasale, a flat dish or platter, has generally been taken to represent a diminutivecratellaofcrater, bowl, or a lostcratale, formed from the same word (see W. W. Skeat, Preface toJoseph of Arimathie, Early Eng. Text Soc).—Ed.
GRAIN(derived through the French from Lat.granum, seed, from an Aryan root meaning “to wear down,” which also appears in the common Teutonic word “corn”), a word particularly applied to the seed, in botanical language the “fruit,” of cereals, and hence applied, as a collective term to cereal plants generally, to which, in English, the term “corn” is also applied (seeGrain Trade). Apart from this, the chief meaning, the word is used of the malt refuse of brewing and distilling, and of many hard rounded small particles, resembling the seeds of plants, such as “grains” of sand, salt, gold, gunpowder, &c. “Grain” is also the name of the smallest unit of weight, both in the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Its origin is supposed to be the weight of a grain of wheat, dried and gathered from the middle of the ear. The troy grain = 1/5760 of a ℔, the avoirdupois grain = 1/7000 of a ℔. In diamond weighing the grain = ¼ of the carat, = .7925 of the troy grain. The word “grains” was early used, as also in French, of the small seed-like insects supposed formerly to be the berries of trees, from which a scarlet dye was extracted (seeCochinealandKermes). From the Fr.en graine, literally in dye, comes the French verbengrainer, Eng. “engrain” or “ingrain,” meaning to dye in any fast colour. From the further use of “grain” for the texture of substances, such as wood, meat, &c., “engrained” or “ingrained” means ineradicable, impregnated, dyed through and through. The “grain” of leather is the side of a skin showing the fibre after the hair has been removed. The imitating in paint of the grain of different kinds of woods is known as “graining” (seePainter-Work). “Grain,” or more commonly in the plural “grains,” construed as a singular, is the name of an instrument with two or more barbed prongs, used for spearing fish. This word is Scandinavian in origin, and is connected with Dan.green, Swed.gren, branch, and means the fork of a tree, of the body, or the prongs of a fork, &c. It is not connected with “groin,” the inguinal parts of the body, which in its earliest forms appears asgrynde.
GRAINS OF PARADISE,Guinea Grains, orMelegueta Pepper(Ger.Paradieskörner, Fr.graines de Paradis,maniguette), the seeds ofAmomum Melegueta, a reed-like plant of the natural orderZingiberaceae. It is a native of tropical western Africa, and of Prince’s and St Thomas’s islands in the Gulf of Guinea, is cultivated in other tropical countries, and may with ease be grown in hothouses in temperate climates. The plant has a branched horizontal rhizome; smooth, nearly sessile, narrowly lanceolate-oblong alternate leaves; large, white, pale pink or purplish flowers; and an ovate-oblong fruit, ensheathed in bracts, which is of a scarlet colour when fresh, and reaches under cultivation a length of 5 in. The seeds are contained in the acid pulp of the fruit, are commonly wedge-shaped and bluntly angular, are about 1¼ lines in diameter and have a glossy dark-brown husk, with a conical light-coloured membranous caruncle at the base and a white kernel. They contain, according to Flückiger and Hanbury, 0.3% of a faintly yellowish neutral essential oil, having an aromatic, not acrid taste, and a specific gravity at 15.5° C of 0.825, and giving on analysis the formula C20H32O, or C10H16+ C10H16O; also 5.83% of an intensely pungent, viscid, brown resin.
Grains of paradise were formerly officinal in British pharmacopoeias, and in the 13th and succeeding centuries were used as a drug and a spice, the wine known as hippocras being flavoured with them and with ginger and cinnamon. In 1629 they were employed among the ingredients of the twenty-four herring pies which were the ancient fee-favour of the city of Norwich, ordained to be carried to court by the lord of the manor of Carleton (Johnston and Church,Chem. of Common Life, p. 355, 1879). Grains of paradise were anciently brought overland from West Africa to the Mediterranean ports of the Barbary states, to be shipped for Italy. They are now exported almost exclusively from the Gold Coast. Grains of paradise are to some extent used illegally to give a fictitious strength to malt liquors, gin and cordials. By 56 Geo. III. c. 58, no brewer or dealer in beer shall have in his possession or use grains of paradise, under a penalty of £200 for each offence; and no druggist shall sell the same to a brewer under a penalty of £500. They are, however, devoid of any injurious physiological action, and are much esteemed as a spice by the natives of Guinea.
See Bentley and Trimen,Medicinal Plants, tab. 268; Lanessan,Hist. des Drogues, pp. 456-460 (1878).
See Bentley and Trimen,Medicinal Plants, tab. 268; Lanessan,Hist. des Drogues, pp. 456-460 (1878).
GRAIN TRADE.The complexity of the conditions of life in the 20th century may be well illustrated from the grain trade of the world. The ordinary bread sold in Great Britain represents, for example, produce of nearly every country in the world outside the tropics.
Wheat has been cultivated from remote antiquity. In a wild state it is practically unknown. It is alleged to have been found growing wild between the Euphrates and the Tigris; but the discovery has never been authenticated,General considerations.and, unless the plant be sedulously cared for, the species dies out in a surprisingly short space of time. Modern experiments in cross-fertilization in Lancashire by the Garton Brothers have evolved the most extraordinary “sports,” showing, it is claimed, that the plant has probably passed through stages of which until the present day there had been no conception. The tales that grains of wheat found in the cerements of Egyptian mummies have been planted and come to maturity are no longer credited, for the vital principle in the wheat berry is extremely evanescent; indeed, it is doubtful whether wheat twenty years old is capable of reproduction. The Garton artificial fertilization experiments have shown endless deviations from the ordinary type, ranging from minute seeds with a closely adhering husk to big berries almost as large as sloes and about as worthless. It is conjectured that the wheat plant, as now known, is a degenerate form of something much finer which flourished thousands of years ago, and that possibly it may be restored to its pristine excellence, yielding an increase twice or thrice as large as it now does, thus postponing to a distant period the famine doom prophesied by Sir W. Crookes in his presidential address to the British Association in 1898. Wheat well repays careful attention; contrast the produce of a carelessly tilled Russian or Indian field and the bountiful yield on a good Lincolnshire farm, the former with its average yield of 8 bushels, the latter with its 50 bushels per acre; or compare the quality, as regards the quantity and flavour of the flour from a fine sample of British wheat, such as is on sale at almost every agricultural show in Great Britain, with the produce of an Egyptian or Syrian field; the difference is so great as to cause one to doubt whether the berries are of the same species.
It may be stated roundly that an average quartern loaf in Great Britain is made from wheat grown in the following countries in the proportions named:—
For details connected with grain and its handling seeAgriculture,Corn Laws,Granaries,Flour,Baking,Wheat, &c.
Wheat occupies of all cereals the widest region of any food-stuff. Rice, which shares with millet the distinction of being the principal food-stuff of the greatest number of human beings, is not grown nearly as widely as is wheat, the staple food of the white races. Wheat grows as far south as Patagonia, and as far north as the edge of the Arctic Circle; it flourishes throughout Europe, and across the whole of northern Asia and in Japan; it is cultivated in Persia, and raised largely in India, as far south as the Nizam’s dominions. It is grown over nearly the whole of North America. In Canada a very fine wheat crop was raised in the autumn of 1898 as far north as the mission at Fort Providence, on the Mackenzie river, in a latitude above 62°—or less than 200 m. south of the latitude of Dawson City—the period between seed-time and harvest having been ninety-onedays. In Africa it was an article of commerce in the days of Jacob, whose son Joseph may be said to have run the first and only successful “corner” in wheat. For many centuries Egypt was famous as a wheat raiser; it was a cargo of wheat from Alexandria which St Paul helped to jettison on one of his shipwrecks, as was also, in all probability, that of the “ship of Alexandria whose sign was Castor and Pollux,” named in the same narrative. General Gordon is quoted as having stated that the Sudan if properly settled would be capable of feeding the whole of Europe. Along the north coast of Africa are areas which, if properly irrigated, as was done in the days of Carthage, could produce enough wheat to feed half of the Caucasian race. For instance, the vilayet of Tripoli, with an area of 400,000 sq. m., or three times the extent of Great Britain and Ireland, according to the opinion of a British consul, could raise millions of acres of wheat. The cereal flourishes on all the high plateaus of South Africa, from Cape Town to the Zambezi. Land is being extensively put under wheat in the pampas of South America and in the prairies of Siberia.
In the raising of the standard of farming to an English level the volume of the world’s crop would be trebled, another fact which Sir William Crookes seems to have overlooked. The experiments of the late Sir J. B. Lawes in Hertfordshire have proved that the natural fruitfulness of the wheat plant can be increased threefold by the application of the proper fertilizer. The results of these experiments will be found in a compendium issued from the Rothamsted Agricultural Experimental Station.
It is by no means, however, the wheat which yields the greatest number of bushels per acre which is the most valuable from a miller’s standpoint, for the thinness of the bran and the fineness and strength of the flour are with him important considerations, too often overlooked by the farmer when buying his seed. Nevertheless it is the deficient quantity of the wheat raised in the British Islands, and not the quality of the grain, which has been the cause of so much anxiety to economists and statesmen.
Sir J. Caird, writing in the year 1880, expressed the opinion that arable land in Great Britain would always command a substantial rent of at least 30s. per acre. His figures were based on the assumption that wheat was importedFreight rates.duty free. He calculated that the cost of carriage from abroad of wheat, or the equivalent of the product of an acre of good wheat land in Great Britain, would not be less than 30s. per ton. But freights had come down by 1900 to half the rates predicated by Caird; indeed, during a portion of the interval they ruled very close to zero, as far as steamer freights from America were concerned. In 1900 an all-round freight rate for wheat might be taken at 15s.per ton(a ton representing approximately the produce of an acre of good wheat land in England), say from 10s. for Atlantic American and Russian, to 30s. for Pacific American and Australian; about midway between these two extremes we find Indian and Argentine, the greatest bulk coming at about the 15s. rate. Inferior land bearing less than 4½ quarters per acre would not be protected to the same extent, and moreover, seeing that a portion of the British wheat crop has to stand a charge as heavy for land carriage across a county as that borne by foreign wheat across a continent or an ocean, the protection is not nearly so substantial as Caird would make out. The compilation showing the changes in the rates of charges for the railway and other transportation services issued by the Division of Statistics, Department of Agriculture, U.S.A. (Miscellaneous series, Bulletin No. 15, 1898), is a valuable reference book. From its pages are culled the following facts relating to the changes in the rates of freight up to the year 1897.1In Table 3 the average rates per ton per mile in cents are shown since 1846. For the Fitchburg Railroad the rate for that year was 4.523 cents per ton per mile, since when a great and almost continuous fall has been taking place, until in 1897, the latest year given, the rate had declined to .870 of a cent per ton per mile. The railway which shows the greatest fall is the Chesapeake & Ohio, for the charge has fallen from over 7 cents in 1862 and 1863 to .419 of a cent in 1897, whereas the Erie rates have fallen only from 1.948 in 1852 to .609 in 1897. Putting the rates of the twelve returning railways together, we find the average freight in the two years 1859-1860 was 3.006 cents per ton per mile, and that in 1896-1897 the average rate had fallen to .797 of a cent per ton per mile. This difference is very large compared with the smallness of the unit. Coming to the rates on grain, we find (in Table 23) a record for the forty years 1858-1897 of the charge on wheat from Chicago to New York, via all rail from 1858, and via lake and rail since 1868, the authority being the secretary of the Chicago Board of Trade. From 1858 to 1862 the rate varied between 42.37 and 34.80 cents per bushel for the whole trip of roundly 1000 m., the average rate in the quinquennium being 38.43. In the five years immediately prior to the time at which Sir J. Caird expressed the opinion that the cost of carriage from abroad would always protect the British grower, the average all-rail freight from Chicago to New York was 17.76 cents, while the summer rate (partly by water) was 13.17 cents. These rates in 1897, the last year shown on the table, had fallen to 12.50 and 7.42 respectively. The rates have been as follows in quinquennial periods, via all rail:—
Chicago to New York in Cents per Bushel.
Calculating roundly a cent as equal to a halfpenny, and eight bushels to the quarter, the above would appear in English currency as follows:—
Chicago to New York in Shillings and Pence per Quarter.
Another table (No. 38) shows the average rates from Chicago to New York by lakes, canal and river. These in their quinquennial periods are given for the season as follows:—
In Cents per Bushel of60 ℔.
In Shillings and Pence per Quarter of480 ℔.
In Shillings and Pence per Ton of2240 ℔.
This latter mode is the cheapest by which grain can be carried to the eastern seaboard from the American prairies, and it can now be done at a cost of 7s. 6d. per ton. The ocean freight has to be added before the grain can be delivered free on the quay at Liverpool. A rate from New York to Liverpool of 2½d. per bushel, or 7s. 10d. per ton, a low rate, reached in Dec. 1900, is yet sufficiently high, it is claimed, to leave a profit; indeed, there have frequently been times when the rate was as low as 1d. per bushel, or 3s. 1d. per ton; and in periods of great trade depression wheat is carried from New York to Liverpool as ballast, being paid for by the ship-owner. Another route worked more cheaply than formerly is that by river, from the centre of the winter wheat belt, say at St Louis, to New Orleans, and thence by steamer to Liverpool. The river rate has fallen below fivecents per bushel, or 7s. per ton, 2240 ℔. 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 17¼ 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.
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.
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.
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 ℔), 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 theCorn Trade Year-Book:—
In passing, it may be pointed out that for a period of four years, from 1871 to 1874, the price of wheat averaged 56s. per quarter (or 7s. per bushel), with the charge for ocean carriage at 6s. 5d. per quarter, whereas in 1901 wheat was sold in England at 28s. (or 3s. 6d. per bushel), and the charge for ocean carriage was 3s. 6d. per quarter; the ocean transport companies carried eight bushels of wheat across the seas in 1901 for the value of one bushel, or exactly at the same ratio as in 1872.
The contrast between the case of railway freight and ocean freight is to be explained by the greater length of the present ocean voyage, which now extends to 10,000 miles in the case of Europe’s importation of white wheat from the Pacific Coast of the United States and Australia, in contrast with the short voyage from the Black Sea or across the English Channel or German Ocean. It is largely due to the overlooking of this phase of the question that an American statistician has fallen into the error of stating that about 16s. per quarter of the fall in the price of wheat, which happened between 1880 and 1894, is attributable to the lessened cost of transport.
Wheat PricesThe following figures show the fluctuations from year to year of English wheat, chiefly according to a record published by Mr T. Smith, Melford, the period covered being from 1656 to 1905:Price per Quarters. d.s. d.s. d.s. d.s. d.165638 2170623 1175640 1180679 1185669 2165741 5170725 4175753 4180775 4185756 4165857 9170836 10175844 5180884 4185844 2165958 8170969 9175935 3180997 4185943 9166050 2171069 4176032 51810106 5186053 3166162 2171148 0176126 9181195 3186155 4166265 9171241 2176234 81812126 6186255 5166350 8171345 4176336 11813109 9186344 9166436 0171444 9176441 5181474 4186440 2166543 10171538 2176548 0181565 7186541 10166632 0171642 8176643 1181678 6186649 11166732 0171740 7176757 4181796 11186764 5166835 6171834 6176853 9181886 3186863 9166939 5171931 1176940 7181974 6186948 2167037 0172032 10177043 6182067 10187046 11167137 4172133 4177147 2182156 1187156 8167236 5172232 0177250 8182244 7187257 0167341 5172330 10177351 0182353 4187358 8167461 0172432 10177452 8182463 11187455 9167557 5172543 1177548 4182568 6187545 2167633 9172640 10177638 2182658 8187646 2167737 4172737 4177745 6182760 6187756 9167852 5172848 5177842 0182860 5187846 5167953 4172941 7177933 8182966 3187943 10168040 0173032 5178035 8183064 3188044 4168141 5173129 2178144 8183166 4188145 4168239 1173223 8178247 10183258 8188245 1168335 6173325 2178352 8183352 11188341 7168439 1173434 6178448 10183446 2188435 8168541 5173538 2178551 10183549 4188532 10168630 2173635 10178638 10183648 6188631 0168722 4173733 9178741 2183755 0188732 6168840 10173831 6178845 0183864 7188831 10168926 8173934 2178951 2183970 8188929 9169030 9174045 1179054 9184066 4189031 11169130 2174141 5179148 7184164 4189137 0169241 5174230 2179243 0184257 3189230 3169360 1174322 1179349 3184350 1189326 4169456 10174422 1179452 3184451 3189422 10169547 1174524 5179575 2184550 10189523 1169663 1174634 8179678 7184654 8189626 2169753 4174730 11179753 9184769 9189730 2169860 9174832 10179851 10184850 6189834 0169956 10174932 10179969 0184944 3189925 8170035 6175028 101800113 10185040 3190026 11170133 5175134 21801119 6185138 6190126 9170226 2175237 2180269 10185240 9190228 1170332 0175339 8180358 10185353 3190326 9170441 4175430 9180462 3185472 5190428 4170526 8175530 1180589 9185574 8190529 8Average50years42 1036 051 965 10*42 7* Average for 46 years only.
Wheat Prices
The following figures show the fluctuations from year to year of English wheat, chiefly according to a record published by Mr T. Smith, Melford, the period covered being from 1656 to 1905:
Price per Quarter
Thus, whatever the cause of the decline in the price of wheat may be, it cannot be attributed solely to the fall in the rate of rail or ocean freights. Incidental charges are lower than they were in 1870; handling charges, brokers’ commissions and insurance premiums have been in many instances reduced, but all these economies when combined only amount to about 2s. per quarter. Now if we add together all these savings in the rate of rail and ocean freights and incidental expenses, we arrive at an aggregate economy of 8s. per quarter, or not one-third of the actual difference between the average price of wheat in 1872 and 1900. To what the remaining difference was due it is difficult to say with certitude; there are some who argue that the tendency of prices to fall is inherent, and that the constant whittling away of intermediaries’ profits is sufficient explanation, while bi-metallists have maintained that the phenomenon is clearly to be traced to the action of the German government in demonetizing silver in 1872.