WHEAT PURCHASE

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3053, 14 April 1917, Page 12

WHEAT PURCHASE

SOME BUSINESS DETAILS. The Board of Trade is l going to Christchurch on Monday to discuss with farmers, merchants, and millers, certain questions that have arisen in 'the development of the Government's wheat purchase enterprise. The Government has fixed the price of wheat at os. lOd. per bushel, f.o.D. If nil the wheat .wore--brought to a port and actually shipped, no question would be at all likely to arise as to the effect of the term f.0.b., but the fact is that only some of the wheat is shipped.'" The maximum price 'is that payable for. wheat delivered at some main port of shipment, and if wheat is purohased free on rail at a country station the grower or other seller 'is entitled only to the fixed price, l less the cost of transport to the nearest port of shipment. It is therefore a breach of the Order-in-Council to pay any farmer the price of os. lOd. per bushel free on rail at a country station. In the same way, if a farmer sells his wheat to a country mill,, of which there are a few in Canterbury, he is not entitled to receive the f.o.b. price. If, for instance, a Rangiora farmer sells his wheat to the local mill, he is entitled to payment at the rate of ,ss. lOd. per bushel, less tlie cost per bushel of transporting' that wheat to Lyttelton, even though those costs have not actually been incurred.

There is, misunderstanding also regarding tlie payment of brokerage. Brokerage is allowed for services actually performed. If a Wellington merchant instructs a Christchurch firm to buy for him a certain quantity of wheal, the Christchurch firm is entitled to buy. the wheat at the cur : rent market price—which is now the fixed price—and to charge brokerage. But it is not legal for a merchant to charge brokerage on the resale of wheat which he has hiniself purchased on his own account at' the. price fixed by the Government.