OATS FOR SOUTH AFRICA.

Otago Witness, Issue 2499, 5 February 1902, Page 10

OATS FOR SOUTH AFRICA.

A VALJ-ABLE SI'GGESTHON. Mr T Mackenzie, M.H.R.. has Fent the following wire to the Right Hen the Premier : — " Right Hon Premier. Auckland. — Announced in to-day's papers Go\emment ha 3 large oat order for South Africa from Imperial Government to place. Might I respectfully t-uggeal your giving the fanner-. first opportunity of bupp'.ying the order direct through Agricultural Department. Tliih course was followed by Hon. Mr Fishei. Minister of Agriculture, with large fiat oriler leceived by Canada, thiough Lord Strathcona for the army in South Africa. - THOM \b M VKEXZTK." MR SEDDON" S REPLY. On Friday night Mi Mackenzie iecei\ed

the following reply: — " Will send you to-mor-row copy of conditions for oat contract, and you will see that under these conditions it is- impossible for the farmers to come in at all. In fact, it is almost impossible for any person to look at-^the contract. In any case, being a financial transaction, it would have to be done through the Treasury. — R. J. Seddon, Auckland."

Mr T. Mackenzie, M.H.R., has supplied us with the following copy of a reply forwarded by him to the Premier's telegram, which we * published above, on the subject of the Imperial order for oats for South Africa, which is to be placed in New Zealand: — "Thanks for telegram and kindly permitting me to see terms of contraot. I greatly regret conditions under which New Zealand receives order bar Government extending to our farmers same advantages as were secured by the High Commissioner of the Dominion of Canada. The Canadian Government shipped through its Agricultural Department large quantities of hay and oate, thus saving middlemen's profits. Your just remonstrance with the Colonial Office regarding the Argentine meat contracts might now reasonably have added a complaint of this colony not being fairly treated when an order comes our way."

Mr Mackenzie has directed our attention to the fact that the Canadian Department of Agriculture, which has ajready sent large quantities of Canadian hay to South Africa, has just made arrangements with the War Office, through the High Commissioner of. the Dominion ot. O*nada, Lord Strathcona, for extensive shipments of oats to that country. The supply will be drawn from Alberta, north-weßt territories, where, in - a new settlement 15(0 miles long by. 50 milej^wide, on the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains, there is a heavy crop of excellent oats, for which a home market is not immediately available. Mr Fisher, the Minister of Agriculture, will purchase the oats from the farmers, and 9hip them over the Canadian-Pacific line, 3000 miles by rail, to the seaboard, in trains composed of cars carrying 1500 bushels per car in bulk. Half a million bushels will be shipped in this way, and during transit will be- put in sacks ready for shipment at St. John for Capetown, in steamers chartered by the Department of Agriculture. It is to he regretted that the Government cannot, in a manner- similar to that adopted in Canada, utilise its own Agricultural Department for the placing of large orders direct with the farmers. It is alleged that when the last oat oon tract* were placed here th© middlemen reaped a very big profit out of the transaction, ranging from 3d to 6d per bushel, and that, too, when oats were very low in price.