WHEAT SUPPLIES TO FREE MILLS

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20978, 5 October 1933, Page 14

WHEAT SUPPLIES TO FREE MILLS

■ TO TKB EDITOS OF TUB TRESS. Sir,—Mr Worrall attempts to explain . away his definite misstatement tßat the free mills are not represented on the board by stating that what he meant was that he had declined to accept Mr Pratt as his representative. Mr Worrall is reported in his Auckland interview to have said that he represented three other mills, so it would appear as though the other new mills, for which he signed up in Wei- j jington, have taken him at his word when he informed the Hon. the Minister for Industries and Commerce that he would have nothing more to do with them if they would not honour his signature. Mr Worrall winds %-> by asking "Whether I will answer 12s question as to whether the rationing of wheat to mills is solely for the purpose of obfinance. Although I commenced this correspondence solely to expose Mr Worrell's misstatements, and there are other misstatements I have not exposed, yet I am pleased to to the question. Yes, the rationing of wheat was decided upon by the board for the purpose of finance, .and the hoard could not have successfully operated otherwise.— Yours, etc, K. F. NICOLL. : Ashburton, October 4, 1933. TO THE EDITOR Off THS PBE33. Sir, —I am afraid I have been trespassing a great deal on your space lately in connexion with the above •subject, but I would like to comment on the letter from "Agricola" published in your issue of October 1.

Personally, I am quite convinced, and If Agricola" is still a wheat farmer I think I. could convince him, that a wheat board is a very excellent thing indeed for the wheat grower. It should be able to ensure him a fair grace for his crop, prevent him from being taken advantage of by speculators, and enable the growers to speak with one voice politically. The trouble With the present Wheat Board and the cause of its failure is the fact that it consists of representatives of two conflicting interests, the wheat grower and the miller. As seller and buyer respectively their interests can hardly be identical, and it has puzzled me immensely ,as to why millers ever were put on this board. The only explanation I have been able to get so far is the same one given as the excuse for rationing wheat to mills, viz., that the big miller must be placated so that he will buy the wheat and buy it early in the season, so that money, can be provided sor the board 1 to carry on. i. do not think it requires a particularly thoughtful farmer to see the fallacy of this. The miller must either buy and use New Zealand wheat or close his miU up altogether; he cannot, uncter existing conditions, run his mill on imported wheat without incurring sucn a loss as to put him out of business. Consequently, whether he is or is not represented on the board he must buy the board's wheat. No miller every buys wheat, either early or late, unless he thinks it will pay him to do so, any more than any farmer ever grows wheat unless he thanks it will be profitable. No miller will ever buy wheat early and hold it during the season, incurring interest and storage charges, unless he can see some prospect of its paying him to do so, Tfiis. is where toe present board's system of monthly rises in price 10 encourage early buying comes in. Consequently, any wheat board, whether it has millers on or not, can ensure early buying of wheat by the very simple expedient of making the price during the early months of the season sufficiently attractive to influence millers to buy. For the above reasons I do not see any advantage at all to the farmer in having millers on the "Wheat Board. It is, htfwever, quite easy to see the disadvantages of having them on. While in the North Island recently, in discussions on the wheat question, 1 very soon came to the conclusion that wheat growers had sacrificed a lot of sympathy through their very close association with Hour milkers on the Wheat Board; This association was looked upon with deep suspicion, whicn was not ixnproved when 'the boara shipped a lot of wheat to China at between half a crown and three shillings a bushel. They considered that if the board had been a farmers' board, With farmers' interests at heart, it would have devised some method of using this cheap wheat to build up and improve the struggling poultry and pig industries in the North Island rather than give the advantage of it to the people of a. foreign country like China. As they pointed out the net result of exporting this wheat was to increase the price of fowl wheat to 1 them, a needless hardship for which they blame the board. An indication of the feeling against the present Wheat Board in the North Island is given by the following extracts from a report presented to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and published in a prominent Auckland newspaper on September 29. "At the same time our poultry producers cannot get the benefit of cheap wheat to enable them to prosecute their own primary industry and have to put up with the spectacle of overseas poultry producers and other buyers of New Zealand wheat securing it at prices very substantially below those charged to the New Zealand purchaser.

"When a monopoly starts it is always a difficulty to see how far-reaching its effects may become. From reports iri •The Press' we notice that , the 'free' millers iri the south are meeting dif-. jficulties in regard to obtaining supplies of wheat for milling, even at the full rates asked for. Apparently the six new mills which have been put into operation since 1931 are finding that the control of the wheat supplies is so entirely in the hands of the Wheat Purchase Board—and this board is apparently controlled' by Distributors, Ltd., and its associates to such an extent as almost to freeze out of existense these hew mills. . . "It is realised that every ton of wheat sold to the free millers will mean one ton less sold to the mills in or assorted with Distributors, Ltd., and it ■would seem.from 'The Press' statement that the Wheat Board is determined on a policy of so rationing the supplies ■of wheat as seriously to prejudice, it not to crush out, any opposition to the monopoly." I think if "Agricola" studies the position again he will come to the same conclusion as I have, viz., that a farmers' board is perfectly capable of handling the wheat crop of this country satisfactorily from the point of view of the grower and fairly from the point of view of the consumer, out it must be a purely farmers' body formed for the one particular purpose of disposing in a fair and reasonable : manner of the wheat grown in New i Zealand, and not be a composite board • of conflicting interests as the present ]

one is.—Yours, etc., _ H. WORRALL. October 4, 1933.