DOES WHEAT FARMING PAY?

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 74, 21 December 1918, Page 10

DOES WHEAT FARMING PAY?

I After' quoting .facts; and figures in the ' Federal' Senate demonstrate that wheat i growing is to-day the leading rural in- ! (iustrv in Australia..and providesi a livc- ! lihood for more persons than all other -rural industries together, Senator Lynch : (AVI \ ) urged the Government to institute an investigation into the conditions ■ under which the industry is being con.■'ducted. No attempt had been made by ; the Government to assist the wheat. 1 T.iisers to' the ■extant- even of a brass : farthin?. Yet the growers were holding their own in the. markets of the ■ * Senator. Guthrio (W.A.): ' They have ' made, fortunes out of wheat. - ! Senator Lynch said " some fortunes 1 might have been made in a lucky cycle i of years. But trikerf all round the profits 1 were very limited, in New South Wales, .-according to a ".report, on the industry,. i the cost, of production per acre was ,£1 ; log., and the average yield 11.4 bushels, realising on the, average; for ten years, ' is. 4d., a bushel. The profit consequently i was only Is; sd. an acre. The results ■were much' the same in Victoria and ! South Australia. Further, it had to bo ' remembered that farmers did not work i on the eigbt-honr day System. Had the ! men engaged in the industry worked only ' eight hours a day they would not have earned 6d. an hour. There were scores of thousands of persons eking out an ' existence wheat farming to-day who ought to be in comfortable and prosper- , ou9 circumstances. The Government 1 should inn.nire' into the matter and see ;■ what could bo'dono to remedy the eitua- ; tion. .