The Timaru Herald. WEDNESDAY, MARCH, 28, 1917. THE WHEAT QUESTION.

Timaru Herald, Volume CVI, Issue 16230, 28 March 1917, Page 6

The Timaru Herald. WEDNESDAY, MARCH, 28, 1917. THE WHEAT QUESTION.

The decision of the Government to take over the .whole of the 1917-18 wheat crop, paying os lOd f.o.b. for all good milling wheat, should be 'very satislactory to the farmers, who have urged repeatedly that the Government should commandeer the wheat yield, as it has done meat and other produce. By the course agreed-to the influence of the speculator is eliminated, and. farmers .will know exactly, when they plant wheat, what price they can expect to get for it. They may hot think the price a 'high one, though it represents a considerable improvement on the rates suggested by the Government , a few weeks' ago of. 5s 5d and 5s lOd, according to the weight of crop, and is more than they would have dreamed of getting in the days before the war. The expenses of farming have increased in various directions since the war began, and the price for wheat which would be an exact: reflection of that in-r crease might be a difficult matter for a Roval .Commission to determine. . The matter is complicated also by the fact that very generous prices have been given by the Government - for wool and meat under commandeering schemes, and the natural tendency of every man is to grow what pays him best. In this case the price fixed, and the certainty afforded by the Government's goffer to take" over the coming-crop, should be a real incentive to wheajt growing, and there is another consideration which should be, and we believe is regarded by farmers as a far stronger ~ stimulus. The enemy has made the war a war agai food; resources, the ships required to take food to Great Britain have been and are being seriously reduced, in number, and the least that can be done by this country, in isuch an emergency of the Empire, is to ensure that, by growing- all the wheat it can for its own requirements, it will not, at some future time, be calling for.the shipr to bring- wheat here from overseas, that may be ah too few to supply the crowded population of Great Britain properly. Wheat must be scarce, before long, in every country 'exexcept Russia that is waging- war, and countries like New Zealand that can grow wheat must, for their own sake and for the Empire's sake, grow every grain of it. .-■

The labour difficulty is, doxibtless, a greater obstacle to wheat growing- than any consideration of prices, but that should be eased by the policy, recommended by the Government to Appeal Boards, of exempting men reQuired for agricultural work until the autumn sowings are completed, and there will hare to be incredible bungling on the part of somebodv if labour for the harvesting is not provided. ATanv -Farmers now will have to worlc harder than they have ever done to put in wheat.. They are shore of hands, no doubt, but the armies which held up the German menace in its strongest days were short of numbers, short of everything. Yet they fulfilled their task, and farmers, working in the proper spirit, can fulfil theirs. The Government's offer to supply tractors, which can be worked with very little laboxu - , should not be rejected from conservatism, and one point should be remembered which, from talk which we have heard repeated, appears to be misunderstood in certain quarters, though it should be of the clearest. By growing all the wheat he can no farmer will be working "for the Govern-

inent"j lie .-will be ■ working. for tile country, f or the -Umpire, and ■himself. There seems to Le a tendency in some quarters to view tlie Government as an institult m separate, apart, widen gives ..j----yice and orders just to please itself. No view'could be more incorrect/ i The Government merely represents the neople; the advice it gives is given in their interest; in all things it does its best, and in urging. farmers to grow all the wheat they can it urges one of the greatest needs.

The hopes of a great more important than any since the Marne, which French critics axo said to be indulging, refer evidr ently to the French attempt to break through, the German defences between the Oise and Soissons and roll up their lines. Two advance forts of La Fere, which is on the Oise, have been seized, and more progress south of ths river, despite - strong resistance, is reported to-day. The fierceness of the fighting on the British front is shown by the strug-i gle for Beanmetz, which the Germans recovered, lost again, and made desperate but vain efforts to win back. Beaunietz. is some twelve miles from Cambrai, on the German new line of' defence which therr main iorce-» have now reached. The village of Lagnicourt, north of BeaUmetz, has also been captured by the British, but it says much for the German resistance that the British line has not been materially altered on this front for the past week. Not improbably, however, a containing battle*- is being fought by Marshal Haig, to give the French their opportunity further south.

The Germans always " give the show away." After a Press chorus acclaiming the retreat as due to new and brilliant strategy, and the Kaiser's glorification of it as a "victory,' comes the Prussian "War Minister's explanation of it as due to "lack of guns." No doubt it is due to lack of g-uns and other things. General von Stein describes the German army as "prepared to, meet offensives imperturbably," but prefers apparently that •it should avoid them.-\

The "Vorwaerts"- appears to take grave risks of suspension, when it warns the Government that, with the Russian revolution, the outlook of the war has changed. There is something disingenuous, however, in dts statement that "we no longer fight Czarism and its allies, but an alliance of the world's demor cratieally governed peoples,which; asserts its will to tear down in Germany the last - bulwark of reaction.". The only ally of Czarism, in the "Vorwaerts'"• sense, has been the German nation, and, apart from Czarism under German influence,. Russia bernp- only one of ten nations on: the Entente side, the war has always been between German des-< potisra and "the world's democratically governed peoples:" Kor is peace, which, the "Vorwaerts" prays, brought nearer .by the change of Government in Russia. The German Government is still the same. \

The Russian force which, has been operating in Persia has nowj reached the border near Khanikin, and is pursuing-the Turks, who have entered the vilayet of Mosul-: A British force from Baghdad has also been advancing in that direction, but for a week there has been no.word of its progress. If all goes well the Turk may soon be placed between two fires. The Russian operations recall the ad-i venturous campaign waged in this region in the summer of last yea* by General Baratov, on which more light is thrown by the latest volume of Mr Buchan's History of the "War, just to hand. General Baratov; with a force scarcely •more than an infantry division in strength, supported by cavalry, cleared the Turks from western Persia and on May 15th had reached the frontier, less than 120 miles JVotu Bajrhrlad. One hundred and sixty miles fiu'ther north' ■another force, which might be regarded as an extension of the left wing of the Russian army in Armenia. captured Bevanduz, some eighty miles east of Mosul. No equivalent of this northern force has been mentioned in the present operations.

Baratov's campaign was a specially bold one, as he was out of touch with the Grand Duke's main army, with a base, in northern Persia, 350 miles away. The bold sally towards the Tigris Valley came too late to turn the tide at Eut, and all but led to its own undoing. Turkish reinforcements, sent to Persia, forced Baratov to fall back two hundred miles, to a point beyond Haniadan, over ground that has but recently been recovered. Before he didso, however, a remarkable exploit was performed by a party of five officers and 110 troopers, who rode from Hermanshah to the British canm at Al Gharbi, on the Tigris 180 miles away, to exchange greetings. Their journey was through wild, high mountain passes, deen in snow, and, foramina- for supplies, they rode so quickly that they met with no opposition exceut stray shots at long range. On the day which brought them to the British camp they covered thirty miles, beincr then so fresh' that they spent the eveninsr with song and dance, and declined to

<po to bed till the small hours. It is not known whether General Saratov is still in command on the Persian frontier, or what force ho controls.