WHEAT SUPPLIES TO FREE MILLS

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20983, 11 October 1933, Page 7

WHEAT SUPPLIES TO FREE MILLS

to 'iaE r.unoK or tub rAMs. Sir,—l£r Worrall, in his able defence of the free mills, said that he would not mind if the farmers formed a pool for the selling of their wheat. Well! I am afraid I would. I have never seen a farmer get into business and do any good at it. I have farmed in New Zealand for 40 years and seen omon pools, potato combinations, and wheat marketing boards, and none has come to any good. The wheat combination of 1930-31 was a really bad business for the farmer. The miller put it over him good and hard then. Broadly speaking, the reason is that when competition is cut out, the keenness and vim is cut out also, and the men loaf on their job. The milling and baking trade is now a close monopoly, and you watch the baker s leisurely tread delivering your daily bread. No bother, no hurryjust a gentleman's saunter. Compare that with your milkman who is working on net profits; he is on a jog-trot all the time. The farmer has nothing to fear from open competition. The bogey of bearish tactics is millers' propaganda put over with a definite purpose. As I have already stated, there were speculators this year ready to take all the surplus off the wheat market at 3s 4d or better, and do this without any board or liability whatever. If there had been no board the speculator and miller would have been outbidding each other, and the honest farmer would have come into his own. I am growing wheat again this year and will not be bound to any scheme.— Yours, etc.. AGRICOLA. October 10, 1933.