WHEAT OR WOOL?

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 11126, 27 July 1907, Page 2 (Supplement)

WHEAT OR WOOL?

Mr W. E. Abbott, president of thf Pustofalists' Union; New South Wahs, m addressing the' annual meeting of 11-r union, said that the pastoral, industry, which produced three-fourths of the total wealth of Australia, was taxed fc the purpose of creating a wheat-export-ing industry, which could not be carried on for a single year if the freight charges on wheat: were the same as on Wool and meat for export. ' He alleged tint at the present time pastoralists ha J m ( ay more than four times as much a* wheat-growers, and there were other conditions which were even more unfavorable. They naturally objected to being taxed and penalised for the purpose of creating a subsidised industry, which had done no good to the community as a whole, por even to the subsidised wheat-growers, and which diverted capital and labor from profitable industries, such as wool-growing, meatproduction, dairying, and mining. In the past the Railway Commissioners seemed to be possessed by the idea that the farmers could not live except by growing wheat. The fact was that if farmers devoted the same amount; of labor, capital, and land to the growing of wool and meat for export on cultivated fodder crops as they now did to growing wheat they would find their net incomes multiplied by two. . \ ■•