WHEAT SUPPLY

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2368, 26 January 1915, Page 6

WHEAT SUPPLY

THOSE MYTHICAL HOARDS

NOT IN EXISTENCE PRIME MINISTER CONGRATULATED. A member of Parliament who has taken some interest in the wheat supply problem recently supplied the Prime Minister with the names of four farmers in Canterbury who were supposed to hold considerable quantities of wheat. Mr. Massey at once gave the names to the Registrar-General, and asked him to make the necessary inquiries, in accordance with statutory authority he now possesses, to ascertain the quantity of wheat held by each of the gentlemen whose names had been given. That information has since reached the Prime Minister. Nnmber one farmer holds 25 sacks of wheat seconds (unfit for milling). Number two put his stock on the scales and discovered that he held 6 bushels 51b. 9oz. (a bushel weighing 601b.). Number three confesses to 30 bushels of seconds. Number four provos to be a miller as well as a farmer, and although he has some wheat he has informed the Department that he has not enough wheat in stock to supply his customers until the new wheat comes in, and he has asked, therefore, that he be allowed to purchase 2000 tons of imported wheat from the Government. "This," said Mr. Massey, referring to the foregoing particulars, "bears out the opinion I expressed a few days ago, that apart from the wheat held by' millers we have practically reached the end of our stocks, and that if it had not been for the action of the Government in making arrangements for the importation of wheat and flour;. the position would have been' 6omewhat serious before now. One of the principal millers in the Dominion has stated in a letter to me that the action of the Government in importing wheat' and selling it at a low price 'has saved the consuming public of the Dominion between £20,000 and £25,000." In reply to a telegram advising tbem of the allotment of the wheat cargo of the s.s. Kaiapoi and Hesperus, Mr. Maesey received the following telegram from a firm of millers in Dunedm:— "Thanks for wire. Your arrangements saved the situation, and precludo further danger. Sincerely congratulate you."