WHEAT MARKETING

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20937, 18 August 1933, Page 4

WHEAT MARKETING

to tns RD.-roa or th». ran-?. | Sir, —There have lately appeared in your paper reports of various combined meetings of wheat growers, both New Zealand Wheat Growers' Cooperative Association members, or, as they are commonly called, "pool" members, and free growers. At some of these I read that those present have "unanimously agreed that the sum of' between £BOOO and. £9OOO remaining in the pool association fund 'i.e., Id a bushel retained on each bushel that members put through the pool) be left to form the nucleus of a fighting fund for the formation of a new organisation."' The free growers, I believe, are to be asked to contribute £1 for every 50 acres they had under wheat last season. May I ask when and where the free growers obtained the right to express in any way an opinion on what shall be done with the residue remaining to the credit of pool growers? If there is to be a new organisation. I think that the Wheat Growers' Association affairs should be finalised, and any assets returned pro rata to its members. It is most entertaining to see the free growers giving advice as to what shall be done with the pool members' retained Id a bushel. Surely this amount should be returned to the people who are legally entitled to it. The free growers can then come in and pay their full share in the cost of starting a new organisation, and not leave it to the pool members to bear an undue proportion of the burden, as they most certainly would be doing by this proposal. I think the pool members have carried the free growers long enough, and it is time they took their full share of the cost of any organisation that may be contemplated. Pool members would be well advised to watch the position closely, I think.— Yours, etc., _ POOL MEMBER. August 10, 1933. [This letter was referred to Mr W. W. Mulholland, chairman of the New Zealand Wheat Growers* Association, who said "Pool Member" was evidently confusing the reserve fund of the Wheat Growers' Association, which belonged solely to the Pool members, with the balance of the equalisation fund of the Wheat Marketing Agency Company, which marketed the 1932 harvest. All growers who sold their wheat to millers in 1932 contributed to this latter fund one penny a bushel, which had since been paid back to them. Owing to a provision in the contract with millers under which the 1932 scheme operated, providing that the Wheat Marketing Agency should receive all money received from bran and pollard in excess of a standard rate of £4 10s a ton, there still remained In its fund, after returning the growers' contributions and paying all administrative expenses, the sum named by "I'ool Member." All wheat growers were interested in this fund, which was the one that had been discussed at recent meetings, but had nothing to do with the resfcrve fund r* ♦he Wheat Growers' Associatior which was the property of its members only.]