graph, hurried on board the ship, and the agent draws for the price agreed upon, through some bank, with the shipping documents. In four weeks, in the case of England, and a lesser time for countries intermediate, the shipment arrives; the manufacturer pays the bill, either with his own money or his banker's; and, before another week is out, the cotton and the jute are going through the factory; the linseed has been converted into oil, and the hides are in the tannery being transformed into leather. What has happened in the case of East India produce seems also likely to happen in the case of the great product of Australia—namely, wool—which for many years has been shipped mainly to London for sale and distribution. For with the increased facilities and reduction in the cost of travel and transportation by the Suez Canal route, the tendency in recent years has been to transfer the market for this wool to the country of its growth; as European Continental, and to some extent American, manufacturers are finding out that by this new arrangement they can have their raw material delivered to them within two or three months of the time of purchase, instead of three or four from the date of shipment to London, and at the same time avoid, to a considerable extent, the "profits" and the "corners" of middle-men and speculators. Under these circumstances the day is probably not far distant when the whole wool-crop of Australia, like the cotton-crop of the United States, will be sold before shipment; and another long-established "course" of trade, which has brought buyers from all the world to London will be broken up, to the temporary injury and loss of some, but to the greater advantage of the many. And in anticipation of this change, the largest warehouses in the world, some covering an area of five acres, have recently been erected in Melbourne, Sydney, and other Australian cities.
Importations of East Indian produce are also no longer confined in England and other countries to a special class of merchants; and so generally has this former large and special department of trade been broken up and dispersed, that extensive retail grocers in the larger cities of Europe and the United States are now reported as drawing their supplies direct from native dealers in both China and India.
Another curious and recent result of the Suez Canal construction, operating in a quarter and upon an industry that could not well have been anticipated, has been its effect on an important department of Italian agriculture—namely, the culture of rice. This cereal has for many years been a staple crop of Italy, and a leading article of Italian export—the total export for the year 1881 having amounted to 83,598 tons, or 167,196,000 pounds. Since the year 1878, however, rice grown in Burmah and other parts of the far East has been imported into Italy and other countries of Southern Europe in such enormous and continually increasing quantities, and at such rates, as to excite great apprehensions among the growers of Italian rice, and largely diminish
