Manawatu Daily Times THURSDAY, MARCH 20, 1924. Wheat Fallacies.

Manawatu Times, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3587, 20 March 1924, Page 4

Manawatu Daily Times THURSDAY, MARCH 20, 1924. Wheat Fallacies.

The result of the embargo method on the cultivation of -wheat in New Zealand cannot b e said to provide a very strong argument in favour of the artificial propping-up of great industries. New Zealand gave double barrelled protection to the production of wheat and the net result has been the smallest harvest for many years, so that when the country’s need for foreign wheat is greatest, domestic prices are far above the world’s parity, and dmportaion is prevented by absurd restrictions. In respect to wheat growing New Zealand is out of step with the world (says the “Auckland Herald.”) While the great producing countries have been steadily increasing their production, the Dominion has been reducing its wheat area. An instructive survey of the position has been received from the international Institute of Agriculture. Dealing with the great wheat-produc-ing countries, exclusive of Russia, it shows that the area harvested has increased enormously. For the five pre-war years the average was 190 million acres, for the last five years the average has been 208 million acres, with the record of 213 millions in the last season. New Zealand's experience has been exactly the reverse. The average area in the five years before the war was 241,000 acres: for the last five years the average has been 235,000 acres, with the low record of 185,000 acres for the last harvest.

Is Wheat-growing Unprofitable ? Another striking feature of the world-wide survey is that the 1923-24 harvests produced exceptionally plentiful yields in all the great wheat countries —an average of 16 bushels to the acre against 14| bushels in the previous five years. Canada had tho

heaviest yield, 21 bushels to the acre. The figures are a striking commentary on the complaint that wheat growing in New Zealand is unprofitable. Records extending over half a century show that the yield has never fallen below 18 bushels to the acre, while the average from 1919 to 1923 was 31 bushels, and even this season, when climatic conditions have been abnormally unfavourable, the yield exceeds 23 bushels. Since Canadian farmers can flourish on land producing an average of 13 bushels to the acre there must be some serious fault in New Zealand If Its farmers cannot make wheat pay on 80-bushel land, with a generous measure of protection against foreign competition.,

Our War Memorial. Four hundred and twenty-seven names of those men from the Manawatu Patriotic Society’s district who gave their lives in the war, have been compiled from tho eighteen district war memorials, and now form a card index. ■ As in every case, only the initials and surnames are given, several may prove to bo duplicates. These will bo compared with official records, and thus made as complete as possible. The press are to be asked to publish the alphabetical list, with a view to giving friends and relatives every opportunity to revise, amend, or correct any errors or omisions which may have crept in, after which the names, will h£ sent to England to be engraved upon the tablets of the War Memorial now being prepared for erection in the most central and prominent site in Palmerston North. Travelling 1 Expenses. The classification of the Civil Service was hailed by the officers and the unsuspecting public as a good thing, and no doubt it is; but no good thing is cheap. This act added fifty per cent, to the annual salaries. That also may be a good feature, but that is only one circumstance in which efficiency plays a part. Just at this moment, as on every other close of the financial year, there are about three hundred vacant positions to be filled in one department. This entails over five hundred removals to meet classification requirements, which at a moderate estimate will cost £3O each. Fifteen thousand pounds is a large sum to add to “contingencies.” Legislative enactments are very costly, and this feature of the Classics tion Act causes much embarrassment to those under-secretaries who desire to apply business methods to the administration of their departments.