AUSTRALIAN WHEAT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 15, 19 January 1931, Page 4

AUSTRALIAN WHEAT.

EXPORT AT STANDSTILL

Chaos exists, in the wheat export business, says the "Sydney Morning Herald" of January 2. Shippers assent that, because of uncertainty regarding their responsibility under the Wheat Advances Act, they are making no attempt to engage new full cargo space, while numbers of parcel bookings have been cancelled.

It was learnt that only five or six vessels had been chartered to load the New South Wales new season's crop, as compared with 20 or 30 which, in normal times, would have already been engaged. While it is estimated that the exportable surplus in the Commonwealth will amount to practically 4,000,000 tons, bookings to date, mostly by co-operative concerns, only amount to approximately 650.000 tons.

On the present, value of wheat overseas, it is calculated that, if an advance is made on the basis of 3/ a bushel, f.0.b., there will be a definite loss to the community, on a Commonwealth crop of 200,000,000 bushels, of £7,500,000.

A prominent .wheat shipper said: "We dare not engage any new freight, or handle wheat commercially, for shipment overseas until we know the real extent of our responsibility. The Government has offered 'the Commonwealth Bank a guarantee, but the bank has, on at least one previous occasion, rejected such a giiarantee. For that reason we do not yet know whether, if we operate on the basis of 3/, f.0.b., we will have to make up the inevitable deficiency ourselves." ,