STRIKE OF FARMERS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17949, 29 November 1932, Page 5

STRIKE OF FARMERS

AUSTRALIAN MOVEMENT WHEAT BOUNTY DEMANDED SYDNEY, Nov. 28. Wheat growers in Western Australia and Victoria are demanding a bounty of 6d a bushel and 4d a bushel respectively from the Federal Government, under a threat of withholding this year’s harvest from sale and delivery. The growers of Western Australia are demanding not only 6d a bushel, hut also insist that their own Government provide a security of tenure, for five years, and a preferential claim of not less that £l5O a year on the crop proceeds for sustenance and farm development. This is causing the Federal Ministry the deepest concern, and it is anticipated that the bounty problem will be a burning question when the Financial Relief Bill comes before the House of Representatives on Thursday. FEDERAL PROPOSAL THE £2,000,000 GRANT (Received November 29, 11 a.m.) CANBERRA, Nov. 29. An effort will be made in the House of Representatives to make the £2,CCO,000 which will be devoted to assisting wheatgrowers an unconditional grant to he distributed by the States. The Government is not expected to oppose the proposal. In the Senate, a proposal will he submitted for a straight-out bounty. WHEAT FOR EXPORT MORE THAN 700,000 TONS (Received November £9, 11 a.m.) SYDNEY, Nov. 29. Arrangements have been made to ship nearly 760,000 tons of new season’s Australian wheat overseas. More than 100 ships have been booked to carry full cargoes between December and March. Seventy of the vessels are British. WITH WHAT OBJECT? Ij Perhaps Western Australian farmers who arc now preventing wheat being delivered to railway stations were formerly trade unionists, who, when they cannot get what they want, strike —refuse to work, states the Sydney Herald. If that is so they have still the mentality of trade unionists. They have not yet acquired the mentality of farmers.

These farmers arc striking because the Federal Government will not give them a wheat bounty in the manner which they desire. What possible pressure can they, by refusing to deliver wheat to a railway siding for sale, place on the Federal Government. The most they can hope for is that the wheat they can thus influence will not be available to swell tiro trade balance in London. Even so, transit will be delayed only for a while. If the trade balance, because of the action of Western Australian farmers, is smaller in two months’ time, than it would otherwise- have been it will be made up for when the wheat does come on the market in four, six, or eight months’ time. The wheat is in existence, and. tho Government knows that at some time it will be taken to the railway siding and will be sold. The Government can afford to be patient and longsuffering much more than farmers can. Farmers of Western Australia who have taken this action arc making the same mistake that farmers of Canada made when they co-operatively resolved to withhold wheat from sale so as to 'keep up the price. There was other wheat in the world to be purchased, and: the buyers were not perturbed, for they knew that the Canadian wheat must sometime be sold. It had been sold at low prices, and is being sold to-day at the lowest prices on record). The most outstanding effect of the keeping of the wheat off the market lias been to check speculation in wheat. Taking it by and largo speculation steadies rather than depreciates prices.