DISPOSAL OF WHEAT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 17754, 13 April 1921, Page 8

DISPOSAL OF WHEAT.

UNSATISFACTORY POSITION.

FARMERS IX NEED OF CASH.

MILLERS' PURCHASING TOWER

OPERATION OF GUARANTEE. [Bf TEIJJUIUPB.-OWS COBSESWNDSNT.] CHBISTCIURCH, Tuesday. • Wheat-growers are showing'somo concern owing to the. slow realisation of their crop. The latest official figures suggest a sufficiency for lhff year, if not a very fair nirnlus, and such being the case there is no need for millers to buy beyond current requirements. There is a general belie that millers are adopting this policy, but inquiries among them show that this is not generally tho case. The manager of one of the leading tool firms stated tc-day that he had bought supplies seven or eight months ahead, and the representative o another mOUnj \J™ said that all the wheat being offered by brokers was being accepted. This, ne said, is the position so far but could ZU continue. The whole of the season's wheat was now, or would bo . a few weeks, available for disposal < an lite, could scarcely be expected £ 4uan e tho whole output, particularly when there was no obligation on them to do 80. Certainly the Jd per bushel per month storage would be saved by them hut this would not compensate for tM very largo amount of money involved n thcrt purchase requiring as they would very substantial interest payments. The conditions of salo under control provide for payment within 16 days. In precontrol days the aixangements bfeween seller and purchaser occasionally prov.cled for payment weeks and sometimes several months ahead. ... Another factor tending to minimise, temporarily at anv rate, tho millers purchasing power, is'the lack of shipping. One large vessel. now to' Lyttetton Harbour, should have sailed some days a#> with flour for the North Island, and no fewer than eight vessels of one company's fleet had been held up m Auckland 'luring the strike, vessels which, in the ordinary course, would have been moving ud the coast with flour aboard, if not actually unloaded at their destination This flour is still at the mills instead of tho cash for it being at the bankers. The foregoing is the milters' case, lno grower on bis part has grown tho wheat under arrangement with the Govornment at a certain price. He is now prepared to deliver the goods, but there is no obligation for anyone to take them off his hands. In effect both the grower and the miller havo done their With the bedrock prices for other farm produce the farmer is urgently in need of his money. The delay in paying it might affect the area put in crop this year, aa land cannot be prepared for nothing Furthermore, growers might be tempted, should delivery be unduly delayed, to accept a penny or bo a bushel lcs9*and sell the wheat as fowl feed and obtain the cash.