WHEAT FOR THE EAST

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17918, 24 October 1932, Page 9

WHEAT FOR THE EAST

MANY CHINESE ABANDON RICE SHIPMENTS OF AUSTRALIAN GRAIN MELBOURNE, Oct. 13. . An explanation has been made on behalf of the Victorian .Wheat Growers’ Corporation, Limited, respecting the •announcement that, the manager, Mr C. Judd, and Air IT. W. Pickering, a I director, are making a visit to the i East. They have left for Shanghai, and will lie absent for about three, months. It is hoped that during that time they will be. able to build up, valuable and extensive wheat-trade j connections with some of the important business organisations in both China and Japan. Mr Judd said the impor-j tance to Australia of the Eastern market'could not be over-emphasised. 1 The Victorian pool in the past few. seasons had done extensive business J with' Eastern buyers, and his board was of the opinion that there was room for considerable further de-, velopmcnt. The East was Australia’s natural market, and it had been the pool’s experience in recent seasons that a higher average price could be. secured for wheat sold in the Orient than in the J United Kingdom. Australia had a distinct freight advantage as compared with both America and Canada, and it was in the interests of the Australian industry to take definite and : practical steps to promote further trade with this valuable market Iho importance of the market could be gauged from the export figures dunng the past two seasons. Of the. 4,100,000 bushels shipped from Victoria m the 1929-30 season, 2,650,000 bushels wcjo sold to China and Japan. lor the 1 season 1930-31, of the total shipments Jf 30,404,000 bushels, the East secured 17 000,000 bushels. Already this season wheat exports from the State hat totalled 23,800,000 to the end o September, and of this total 11,000,000 bushels were shipped to the East. It would be remembered that the «ino Japanese trouble had affected the wheat exports for a portion of the ' The Chinese, Air Judd said, were turning from vice to wheat as a staple diet. A vast army of laborers working in the Yangtze Valley following the serious Hoods in that area had been paid with wheat or flour at the end ot each dav. It was estimated that as a result over 2,000,000 Chinese had ],oen positively converted from rice eaters to wheat consumers, and it was believed permanently converted. These people had learned that they could do more work over a longer period on less wheat than they had been accustomed to do on a larger quantity of rice. They had also learned to prepare the wheat for consumption by pounding it into smaller particles and making what | is said to be first-class porridge from it. They had also learned to oat flour . in a form quite like macaroni. This change to a wheat diet throughout the ' East was amazing, and pointed to an ■ ever-increasing market there for wheat.