WHEAT GROWING.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 219, 29 December 1916, Page 4

WHEAT GROWING.

We are not surprised that the recommendation of the conference of wheat-growers at Christchurch as to the terms i n which the Government should take over the wheat yield of the Dominion during the war and for one season after the war, is exciting a good deal of indignant criticism in Canterbury, says the Otago Daily Times. The conference decided that the basis of the transaction between the Government and the wheat-grow-ers should be a payment of 6/3 per bushel at railway stations for best prime milling quality. Probably the wheat-growers, with the example before them of the price that is being paid this season for meat and wool, concluded that they would be justified in widely opening their mouths, but certainlv this is the first time we have

■heard it seriously suggested that wheat cannot be grown profitably in New Zealand for less than 6/3 a bushel for prime qualities. It seems to us, indeed, that it is a monstrous proposal that a price such as this should be received by the grower under a guarantee, such as is contemplated, that the Government shall purchase the whole of his crop, and we have no doubt whatever that, if any such proposal were assented to, the arrangement would meet with, as it would merit, the whole-souled condemnation of the great majority of the people of the Dominion.