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and copper, which still could be sent only to the government direct. The Holland-American Line, the only regular steamers between America and Holland, bound itself to accept contraband goods only when consigned to the government or the trust.*

Before this arrangement had been worked out in Holland and before the other European neutrals had taken measures satisfactory to Great Britain, they had all fallen into real want because of a restriction of their food imports. Throughout October the newspapers of Denmark, Norway and Sweden contained complaints about the detention of grain and food shipments by England. Under such conditions it is not strange that by early November those countries had placed the most stringent embargoes on the export of food. It appears from our note to Great Britain of December 26 that the British Government had consented, in November, to be satisfied with the guarantees offered by the Norwegian, Swedish and Danish Governments as to non-exportation of "contraband goods" when consigned to named persons in the territory of those governments, and that orders had been given to restrict interference with neutral vessels, so consigned, to verification of ship's papers and cargoes.

American exporters have never been enthusiastic about this arrangement. In the fall of 1914 they protested against the Dutch Government assuming a monopoly of flour purchases for Holland. It was claimed that this monopoly, in supplanting the normal competition of Dutch dealers, prevented Americans from getting a competitive price for their flour.

No one in this country worried about the restriction of our grain and provisions trade with Germany and the adjacent neutrals. We shall see that, because of the distress of the cotton planters, largely due to the impossibility of getting cotton started for Germany, there was a successful agitation in October to have the British ban taken off cotton. But no one was in distress about grain.

It is true that in the first weeks of the war grain did not move out of this country, for reasons concerned with the general maritime situation. The uncertainty of the North Atlantic lanes, until Great Britain had cleared them of German cruisers, forbade vessels to venture out. As soon as England was alone in the North Atlantic, neutral and British vessels were safe from capture. Then there were initial difficulties of insurance and especially of finance to be overcome. Bills drawn on foreign buyers were unsalable; for the London discount market, through which these would ordinarily be turned into funds by the American bankers, had temporarily broken down. Requisitioning of British vessels by the Admiralty served to reduce the tonnage available for carrying grain or any other commercial cargo.

Large purchases of our grain were made by foreign buyers in the last week of July and the first week in August. But at that time the goods could not be moved out of this country. Grain left interior centers for the seaboard, filled elevators at the ports and intermediary points like Buffalo, and lay in cars that choked the Atlantic terminal yards of the rail

roads. Railroads to New Orleans and Galveston stopped receiving grain for export until the situation at the ports should clear up.

Yet all this caused little worry to the farmer. The purchases of exporters and their continual bidding for grain drove up the prices paid on the farm. The world began to see that we were to feed Europe, especially when it considered Russia's participation in the war and the stoppage of her exports.

Every day the farmer saw his property in wheat grow more valuable. On July 18, 1914, cash wheat (No. 2 Red Winter) was selling in New York for 88 cents per bushel. On July 24 it was 92, on July 29 it was 982. Wheat sold from 95 cents to $1 during the first half of August. On August 17 it touched 10212 and was never again below $1. On September 1, cash wheat sold for 12012. Until December, when the next rapid advance took place, wheat sold in New York for prices varying between 115 and 125. With the cereal selling at 125, the farmer who still held his wheat was being paid 37 cents per bushel more than on July 18, when the New York price was 88 cents. The capital of the man who owned wheat had increased over 44 per cent.

On December 18, the price reached 13034. It rose almost without interruption to 138 on January 2, to 1452 on January 7, to 15314 on January 14. On January 27 the price touched 160. On February 4 it was 17634. From then until the

last of May it fluctuated often violently between 160 and 175. This averaged fully 100 per cent higher than the 88 cents which was being paid for wheat in New York in the middle of July, 1914. Early in July, 1915, spot wheat still sold for 130, though the September option, due to the expectation of a large American crop, was below 110.

Once the financial and shipping difficulties had been removed, wheat was exported at the rate of 1,000,000 bushels per day. Countries like Italy and Greece, which had always bought heavily from the Black Sea, had to buy in America. Scandinavia, which had secured rye from Russia and East Germany, had to substitute rye and wheat from America. France found part of its harvest appropriated by the invading Germans, who also occupied all of Belgium. The various relief funds for Belgium, notably the Rockefeller Commission, began purchasing food, largely grain and flour, at the rate of $7,000,000 per month.

Obviously no one was needed to come to the rescue of the wheat farmer. His constant interest has been in the continuance of the war, just as the constant interest of the cotton farmer has been in its conclusion. Peace rumors send the grain market down. They send the cotton market up. The Turk, in closing and holding the Dardanelles, thus interning the Russian wheat supply, has been the American farmer's best hired man. The price of wheat on our markets would be reduced along with the forts at Kilid Bahr.-While Wall Street prayed for peace,

the Produce Exchange, a few blocks away, prayed for the war to go on.

As with wheat, so with flour. Winter patents sold in the third week in July for $5 per barrel. On August 11 the same flour was $5.25. On August 25 it was $5.75; on September 25, $6. Here the price remained until the last week in December, when it sold at $6.50. The next week the price was $6.75. Then the rise was rapid, reaching $8.25 on February 1. This about corresponded with the summit of the wheat prices. From February 1 on, the price long averaged $7.50. Compared with the price of $5 in July, 1914, the advance was very perceptible. To be sure, it did not represent clear profit, such as the wheat advance represented to the farmer or the middleman. The miller had to pay more for some of the wheat in his 1915 flour than for the wheat in his 1914 flour. Nevertheless, even the millers, who chronically complain, confessed to some degree of prosperity because of the war.

From August 1, 1913, to May 31, 1914, we exported 75,600,000 bushels of wheat, receiving therefor $71,800,000. In the August-May months of 1914-1915, the war year, we sent abroad 224,000,000 bushels and were paid $297,000,000. In these months of 1913-1914 we exported 10,200,000 barrels of wheat flour, for which we were paid $46,750,000. In the August-May period just past we were paid $85,000,000 for 14,400,000 barrels. On the other hand, high prices which foreigners paid to farmers were matched by the equally high prices paid for

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