-------------------------+---------+---------+-----------+------------- | On May | On July | On August | On September |27, 1898.| 9, 1898.| 20, 1898. | 17, 1898. -------------------------+---------+---------+-----------+------------- | Cts. | Cts. | Cts. | Cts. | per bu. | per bu. | per bu. | per bu. Rate, Moorhead to Duluth | 9.30 | 9.30 | 8.70 | 8.70 Duluth elevator and | | | | inspection charges | 0.80 | 0.80 | 0.80 | 0.80 Lake freight, Duluth to | | | | Buffalo | 1.40 | 1.25 | 1.25 | 1.75 Elevator charges and | | | | commission at Buffalo | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 Canal freight, Buffalo | | | | to New York | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.75 | 2.50 Elevator charges, etc., | | | | in New York | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 Ocean freight, New York | | | | to Liverpool | 8.00 | 3.50 | 4.50 | 6.00 |---------|---------|-----------|------------- Totals | 25.50 | 20.85 | 21.00 | 22.75 -------------------------+---------+---------+-----------+------------- General average, 22.525 cents per bushel. It will be remarked that Mr. Powers says I am wrong in not asserting a sure continuation of the decline in the price of wheat which I predicted in 1880. In setting up one dollar a bushel in London as the standard of this inquiry, I had no thought that our farmers could be made happy for the next thirty years by any hope of securing so high a price. In my predictions in 1880 I said that the time was not then far off when the farmers of the Mississippi Valley would secure as large a remuneration from their wheat at thirty-four shillings per quarter in London as they had been gaining from a previous average of fifty-two shillings. I might then have fixed the lessened price at twenty-eight shillings, and at the present time I have a greater expectation of a reduction in the price of wheat in Mark Lane to less than twenty-eight shillings a quarter, or eighty-five cents a bushel, than I had in 1880 that it would so soon reach thirty-four shillings. I merely adopted a dollar a bushel as an arbitrary standard on which an abundant supply of bread at low cost would be absolutely assured to the people of England.