VIII - PRICES

Summary

NEW SOUTH WALES

The wheat harvest of the year 1850–51 was somewhat scanty, and the price of bread was advanced at the beginning of 1851 from 2½d. to 5d. the 2-lb. loaf; otherwise the course of prices at the opening of the fourth period was on the same low scale as in the latter half of the previous one. When the news of the gold discoveries reached Sydney an impression was generally prevalent that the finds would attract enormous crowds of gold-seekers, and merchants at once began to buy up stores in Sydney, to send to the goldfields. This produced an immediate effect on the prices of articles of common use, which were generally advanced by about 50 per cent, and in some cases by as much as 100 per cent. Gold was discovered in April 1851, in May flour which had been selling in Sydney at £20 a ton was advanced by the merchants to £30, and the bakers immediately put up the price of the 2-lb. loaf to 7d. Supplies were poured into Bathurst, where at first they commanded very high prices. In May the 2-lb. loaf was sold there for 1s., sugar at 9d. per lb., and tea at 4s. But this condition did not last long. There was no great rush to the goldfields, and by the middle of June prices had got back to their old level in Sydney.