SHORTAGE OF OATS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3662, 20 May 1924, Page 14

SHORTAGE OF OATS.

IMPORTATION OF CANADIANS. CHRISTCHURCH, May 17. The latest threshing returns published bv the Government Statistician show that the quantity of oats threshed is the abnormally low total of 1,227,444 bushels. Jf these figures can be accepted as approximately correct then, it seems unlikely that the eventual threshing will pass the 2,000,000 bushel mark. In years of normal prices about 6,000,000 bushels of oats disappear into consumption each year. This season rates are 60 per cent, above last year’s average price, so that a lesser consumption can be looked for, but even so the deficit is grave. Can Canada repair the deficit? Supposing the importations for six months averaged 75,000 sacks, that would be a big quantity to shift, and it is extremely doubtful whether anything like this quantity could be imported. Auckland, for the moment, is sitting tight. Its operators, many of whom are suffering the smarts of a market roasting, declare to the heavens that large quantities will be brought from Canada, but those in the South who are on the trail oi prospective quantities, say that there is a. strange vagueness concerning likely totals of importations. Moreover, some of them profess to have stumbled upon clues pointing to a hitch in shipping arrangements, which will mean that fur--1 ther Canadian purchases will not come

to hand mini tne end of June or July, 80 ‘^|bulls and the “bears’’ are in the ring pawing up the dust behind which they engage. I*or May-June B Cartons are quoted at 5s 3d a bushel, f.0.b., s.i., and for JulyOctober 5s Id. The indications as these figures are written a.re that they could perhaps be shaded by buyers. So far as Canadian oats are concerned, the quantities that arrived by the Niagara have been offered in cental sacks, and Sl, . t l sac 'l' s have little value to holders when emptied.