THE WHEAT DUTIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 267, 10 November 1932, Page 23

THE WHEAT DUTIES.

Your correspondent, "Beanstalk," who has ventured to criticise my letter on the wheat duties, in which I said we could with advantage take a lesson from Denmark, evidently knows very little of the history of agriculture in Denmark or of modem European conditions. Denmark's pre-eminence in farming is due neither to her proximity to the world's markets nor to her natural advantages in the; way of fertile soil and climate. The former are shared by many other

countries, and the latter are greatly exceeded by most of her neighbours. The prosperity of her farmers has been built up on a foundation of a cheap and plentiful supply of imported grain, which has meant a low cost (and a high standard) of living for her people and- a cheap food supply for her livestock. These factors have enabled a thrifty, industrious and intelligent people, by the application of science to their farm-' ing, by intelligent co-operation and intensive cultivation to build up great industries," and'from a small area of relatively poor, infertile land, where stock must be housed in winter and hand-fed, to pro-' duce enormous quantities of pork, bacon, butter, eggs and poultry, which, owing to. their supreme quality, top the world's markets. Am I very wrong in advising Now Zealanders to study Danish methods? We made our butter industry by so doing. "Beanstalk" exaggerates the importance of the wheat industry, and he exaggerates the menace to it that the free importation of wheat would be. Tlje total area down in wheat last year was about the area of the Chatham Islands. Look at the map to make comparisons. Of the 6290 holdings, only 16 were over 350 acres in area, only 400 were over 100 acres, and the vast majority were of such an area as to indicate that wlieatgrowing was a sideline only. With a 10 years' average return of nearly 32 bushels to the acre, why is it that our wheatgrowers ask for protection against Australia with her low average of 12 bushels to the acre? "Beanstalk" says that Australian growers are protected to the extent' of 4Jd a bushel, and that our present moderate duties should remain in force. Let us compare these so-called moderate dutiea with the subsidy given in Australia, and leave out of account the natural protection given to our growers by freight, etc., amounting to over 1/6 a bushel. The average yield of wheat per acre in Australia is 12 bushels, so the Australian wheat grower gets a bonus of 4/6 per acre. Our average yield over a period of 10 years is 32 bushels, so at 1/3 ,a bushel our wheat grower gets a bonus of £2 an acre on the whole 235,942 acres down in wheat. But this is not all. On 22,000 acres the average yield was 50 bushels to the acre, and the amount of protection given was £3 2/6 per acre. Some of our growers obtained over 100 bushels to the acre, in < which case the bonus was over £6 5/ an : acre. Can this sort of protection be ' called moderate? These duties do not 1 help the working farmer; they merely inflate the value of wheatgrowing land and enable the owner to extract more rent from the user. In Denmark the farmers are intelligent enough to recognise the value of the land tax, which enforced there for over 200 years, has kept down land values and checked land 1 speculation, the greatest curse our coun- ■ try has known. The natural protection is'enough to ensure the continuance of wheat growing here, where the returns per acre are so high. It is idle to con- i tend, as "Beanstalk" does, that the

wheat duties do not press on the poultryfarmer, the pig farmer and the stockraiser. Wheat can be bought in the world's markets at 1/6 to 2/ a bushel. Many poultry farmers have had to pay four times as much. With cheap wheat we could easily, double the number of our hens and raise £4,000,000 worth of eggs and poultry. From imported wheat our pig farmers and stock-raisers could obtain their requirements in bran and pollard as readily as from home-grown wheat, and with our plentiful supply of skim milk we could make our pork and bacon industry rival our dairy industry; but we must aim at Danish quality and learn Danish methods. J. E. STEVENS.