A WHEAT SEIZURE

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 74, 24 September 1914, Page 2

A WHEAT SEIZURE

ACTION OF SYDNEY AUTHORITIES. When the Sydney police, acting for the State Government, seized 142,000 bags of wheat, sfored in the railway sheds, at ' Darling Island, on 17th September, no physical force was used. The wheat was in the control and possession of the Railway Department, a Government instrumentality, and when the police inspector presented his authority, and intimated that he seized the wheat on behalf of the Government, he at the same time instructed the railway authorities to hold it for the Crown. It was an interesting confidence, states the Herald,' that the* police inspector who seized the wheat on behalf of the Government was also the officer engaged in Sir Joseph Carruthers' raid on the wirenetting a few years ago, which the Higli Court subsequently declared to be an illegal act. The effect of the Government seizure was to prevent a shipment of 750 tons of wheat oil behalf of John Darling and Son by the troop transport steamer Port Lincoln. This quantity of wheat was intended for shipment to England, and was to go as ballast. The vessel was ready to load the_ wheat in tho morning, but the Darling Island authorities professed not to be ready with men and gear for tho loading, and the day passed without a "bag being transferred from the sheds to the ship's hold. The seizure took place after 5 o'clock.