The Press Wednesday, March 10, 1926. The Wheat Question.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18636, 10 March 1926, Page 8

The Press Wednesday, March 10, 1926. The Wheat Question.

In our commercial section to-day we quote two interesting opinions upon the prospects' of the wheat market. One is from a firm of millers which is offering 6s 8d f.0.b., but forecasting lower prices. The other is from one of the soundest of the merchant firms expressing the opinion that millers will shortly be obliged to offer higher prices. The wheat-grower who can hold his wheat will probably have little difficulty in deciding which of these conflicting opinions should decide his policy. He will really not be obliged to carry his thinking much beyond the fact that while in their public statements the millers are protesting that something like 6s is the utmost they can afford they are privately offering the equivalent of the May schedule. He may be inclined for a moment to give the millers the satisfaction of doing him the kindness of losing money in his behalf, but in the next moment he will probably reflect that the kindness, if not the prices, is too good to be true. The millers will ultimately be obliged to buy Australian wheat, which they will not get for less than Bs, or close down their mills. And if they close down their mills as a final measure in their policy of refusing, despite their past.benefits, to do their part in maintaining an industry as essential to themselves as to the Dominion, the ultimate price they will pay will be a heavy one. In the meantime, the growers must seriously consider what their position will be in future years. A correspondent has written to us suggesting that the Farmers' Union missed a mag- j nificenfc opportunity when it failed to take steps to organise the growers and arrange for them to pool their wheat. Pools have their disadvantages as well as their advantages, but it will probably be generally admitted that if a pool had been arranged for this season the growers would not have been troubled by the endeavour of the millers to break the market.