THE FARMER AND HIS WHEAT.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LXIX, Issue 14466, 28 December 1915, Page 4

THE FARMER AND HIS WHEAT.

In the course of an article in the "Edinburgh Review" on "Patriotism and Agriculture," Mr Rowland E. Prothero, M.P., says it is idle to predict the future course of wheat prices. For some years past they have shown a ten. dency to rise, mainly because agriculture iv the United States is approximating to its condition in old and settled countries. In other words, the yield can only be maintained by increased expenditure. Probabilities, therefore, seem to point to a permanent rise in price. On the other hand, the immediate future at the conclusion of the war is uncertain. A large area has been added to wheat cultivation in neutral countries to meet tho temporary needs of belligerent nations. The restoration of peace will send down freights; the demands of Europe on the wheat supply of the world will speedily resume their normal course, and the increased surplus of wheat-exporting countries will flood the Old World. "Other European nations will, as before, protect their home-grown wheat by maintaining prices. The freetrade country, on the contrary, will welcome tho additional foreign supply as a boon to her industrial population, and the cheaper it is the better for the urban wage-earner. But how about the British farmer, who, in the expectation of remunerative wheat prices, ami in response to the. appeal to uatriotism, has ploughed up profitable pasture? As usual, he goes to the wall. . . In the course of a very few years in every probability the tendency towards a permanently high level of prices will be renewed. But the farmer who has been ruined in the interval will derive cold, comfort from the prospoet of futiiro prosperity."