HC Deb 30 April 1931 vol 251 cc1830-1W
Mr. ROMERIL

asked the President of the Board of Trade what was the average price of wheat per quarter, and of bread per quartern loaf, for each of the years from 1921 to 1930?

Mr. W. GRAHAM

The prices are stated in the following table, in which the figures relating to the different varieties of wheat show the price of 480 lbs. of grain as calculated from the recorded prices per cwt., the official unit of measurement for English wheat since 1922, per 100 lbs. of Argentine wheat and per 496 lbs. of Canadian wheat:

Million cwts.
1926 … … … 2,310
1927 … … … 2,356
1928 … … … 2,509
1929 … … … 2,213

The above particulars exclude the crops of Manchuria, Iraq and Turkey for which countries comparable figures throughout the period are not available. The total output of these three countries is between 50 and 60 million cwts. per annum. Complete details are not available in respect of 1930, but for countries covering some 83 per cent. of the world's total, the crop for 1930 is reported as 1,976 million cwts. as compared with 1,83.5 million cwts. in 1929. Statistics are not available regarding the annual world consumption of wheat, but according to data published by the International Institute of Agriculture, the stocks of wheat remaining in exporting countries at the 1st August of the undermentioned years were as follow:

Million cwts.
1926 … … … … 67
1927 … … … … 100
1928 … … … … 136
1929 … … … … 236
1930 … … … … 224

Period. Quantity. Period. Quantity.
Year: Quarters of 480 lbs. Year: Quarters of 480 lbs.
1909 … … … 4,163,796 1929 … … … Nil.
1910 … … … 6,753,040 1930 … … … 4,367,361
1911 … … … 4,224,757
1912 … … … 2,101,167 Three months ended
1913 … … … 1,169,257 31st March.
1926 … … … 529,137 1929 … … … Nil.
1927 … … … 573,855 1930 … … … 75,113
1928 … … … 19,071 1931 … … … 1,350,754

NOTES.—The figures for 1909 to 1913 relate to imports into the British Isles as a whole consigned from the former Russian Empire, while the figures for 1926 onwards relate to imports into Great Britain and Northern Ireland consigned from the Soviet Union (Russia).

The figures for 1930 and 1931 are provisional.