WHEAT CONTROL

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVII, Issue 10850, 16 March 1921, Page 6

WHEAT CONTROL

GOVERNMENT CRITICISED ALLEGATIONS OF BREACH OF CONTRACT. MINISTER’S DENIAL. Breach of contract with the wheatfarmers of the Dominion was alleged against the Government yesterday afternoon in the course of the Adclress-m-Reply debate, by Mr G. W. Forbes (Hurunut). Tire wheat-growers, stated Mr Forbes, had protested against the continuance of the wheat-control, and wanted a free market. The Government had entered into a contract, through the Agricultural Department to buy their wheat at a price based on the market price ruling in .Australia, namely, 9s a bushel- But the department had broken this contract, had continued the Wheatcontrol, and was giving the fanners a price based, not on an Australian price of 9s a bushel, but on an Australian price of 8s ia bushel. He roundly condemned tliis of contract, , and demanded that the contract Sjhould he submitted to an impartial tnbundl to decide what were th© rights of the farmers under it. Mr J. McCombs (Lyttelton): Are not they satisfied with whut ,they are getTh£ Hon. W. Nosworthy (Minister for Agriculture) said that after the very severe attack that *had been made on the Government and on his department, it behoved him to make a brief but omphalic reply. He had put. the wheat position as clearly as possible before the people in a statement issued the day before and published in that worninrs papers. Mr Forbes 4 Tt is not clear at all. HAD KEPT HIS CONTRACT.

Mr Nosworthy said that it the first time in his life that he had been of not keeping an agreement, tie contended that he |kad kept the contract to tho letter, and that 90 per cent, of. the farmers in Canterbury believed that he had. But a few agitators, whom it did not suit to admit it, declared that ho had not. Political colour was at work. He could prove it. To say that ,the Government had broken contract was absolutely contrary to fact. This year an agreement had been arrived at -with the farmers that, in the event of New Zealand requiring to import wheat, an adjustment would be made on the basis of the price at which milling wheat could be purchased in Australia in February, 1921, and landed ex wharf, having regard to quality, and the necessary adjustment between the North and South Islands. He was not prepared to say that this country needed to import a single bushel of wheat; and he believed that the country could get through without, from the latest information he had got. The only quotation he could get from the Commonwealth Government was that they were prepared to land •wheat and flour in Auckland on the basis of 8s a bushel wheat. The price of the flour was something between 10s and 11s f.o.b. j but, .on this condition, the New Zealand Government would have to take half wheat and half flour. The wheat and flour had both been rejected by the eastern market, and we were not given an. option of rejecting it. He, therefore, turned the offer down; and when he wanted to get the price of Australian "wheat as th© basis for the price of our wheat, Australia refused to quote. But the Wheat Control Office, Australia, had admitted that it had sold * wheat for export at 8s a bushel, f.0.b.; and our Government had adopted that as th© basis for the price of our wheat, adding lOd to make it th© c.i.f. price at Auckland. Everything undertaken by the Government had, he claimed, been carried out to the letter. The farmers had not been deprived of one fraction of a v»enny of what was promised them. Anybodv who said otherwise was stating what was contrary to fact. Air Forbes: Mr Trotter ©ays otherwise. Mr Nosworthy maintained that it was not correct. The price for local consumption in Australia was a fictitious price. The value in the world's market was 8s a bushel, and the Government had not misled the farmers, nor deprived them of a shilling. Anybody who said that the Government had not lived up to the contract was stating what was r.bsolutelv contrary to fact.