“Flogging” Wheat.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 365, 5 March 1932, Page 8

“Flogging” Wheat.

Smuggling Dags Again

Police Investigate Cases in Australia. (Special to the “ Star.”) MELBOURNE, February 26. r pilE UNFINANCIAL CONDITION of settlers in certain country districts has created a new activity and coined a new phrase. When people say that a man is “ flogging ” wheat, they mean that he is secretly selling grain that he has grown on his farm, but on which the Closer Settlement Board has a lien in return for sustenance supplied. The board has threatened that any man caught flogging wheat will be put off his holding, but the practice goes on. Wheat flogging is an indication of the desperate state to which some of the Mallee settlers have been driven. They had been receiving sustenance until recently in the shape of goods, and had no cash. Selling a few bags of wheat on the quiet provides them with money to spend. Some of them have thought of their wives and children and sent them away for a holiday on the proceeds.

There are drastic regulations against wheat flogging. Not only may action be taken against the offending settler, but the person who buys the flogged wheat is liable to a fine of £IOO or two years’ imprisonment, or both. Yet in spite of the consequences the practice has become frequent enough for a special detective to be now in the Mallee seeking out offenders. He has collected much evidence, and has discovered among other things that a quantity of wheat has been flogged over the border into South Australia.'

yhere is more than a little sympathy with the floggers in some quarters. The opinion among settlers, business men and travellers is that these men have been allowed to break their hearts in impossible country, that they can see no release from their difficulties, that they are without hope or money, ana that they are not to be blamed. The attitude is very wrong, of course, and in defiance of the law, but it exists.

So the old smuggling days have achieved resurrection in the Mallee. In the dead of night waggons and drays loaded with the board’s wheat creak along little-used tracks, sometimes to arrive at obscure destinations. The teamster calls in subdued tones to his horses and peers into the darkness. The waggon groans on through the sand and presently one more load of wheat is flogged. Where does it go to? Some has reached flour mills. It is easy enough to mix up the wheat of the “ bound ” settler with that of the “ free.” Some storekeepers are said to be sympathetic to the floggers in the hope of getting something paid off their accounts. Storekeepers generally, however, disclaim all association with the practice. Most of the flogging is said to be done by certain carriers who buy the wheat from the settler and cart it away at night to some destination unknown. Detective A. B. Cavanagh, who is conducting the investigations, has kept many a lonely vigil on Mallee side roads at night waiting for the wheat flogger to pass by. Many suspects have been shadowed and many wheat holdings queried. The investigations have been conducted in the Millewa district and are extending southward. Prosecutions are expected in the near future.