AUSTRALIAN WHEAT PRICES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17269, 19 September 1919, Page 7

AUSTRALIAN WHEAT PRICES

FARMERS PROPOSE MINIMUM. TO REMAIN FOR THREE YEARS A. and N.Z. SYDNEY, Sept. 18. The Farmers' Conference recorded the opinion that the most effective means of preventing the extinction of the wheat industry was for the Federal Government to guarantee that a minimum price of 5a 6d a bushel be fixed for a period of three years, that no wheat be sold for local ' consumption at less than export parity, and that the milling wheat now held in various pools be not sold locally or for export at less than 7s a bushel. An announcement was made in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly on September 9 that the State Government had decided to give the formers a guarantee of 5s a bushel on their wheat crop for 1920-21, delivered at country railway stations, instead of 4s, as for the 1919-20 crop. The Minister for Agriculture, Mr. Grahame, added that the Federal Wheat Board had announced that in future the price of wheat for home consumption would be on the London parity, which was then 5s 6d. Wheat for local consumption would be 5s 6d by the end of that week or the beginning of the next, so that the 58 guarantee would not necessitate an increase in the price of bread. Resolutions carried by a conference of primary producers held in Sydney last November proposed a minimum guarantee of at least 5s a bushel for 1920, 4s 6d for 1921, and 4s for 1922, these prices to be paid on delivery at the country railway stations. In addition, it was recommended that an extra 6d or Is a bush should be .guaranteed over the fixed price to returned soldiers.