WHEAT AND FLOUR

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 134, 2 March 1921, Page 6

WHEAT AND FLOUR

” POSITION IN AUSTRALIA AN EXTRAORDINARY CROP INTERVIEW WITH MR. H. BALDWIN With a bare flour market (for the time being) and the Minister of Agriculture in conference with tho Board of Trade, the millers and the farmers, the flour and wheat question is one of particular interest just now. Mr. H. Boldwin. one of the chief flour merchants in Wellington, who returned from Australia by the Moana, had special facilities for observing most phases of the question over there. Mr. Baldwin says that the Commonwealth people do not know precisely what the crop of wheat amounts to, but it is roughly estimated at between 30,000,000 and 40,000,000 bushels—a wonderful crop of good quality wheat, that it will puzzle the Commonwealth Government what to dp with, if they persist in acting ae foolishly as they were when lie was in Melbourne. The position was this—that the Government had fixed the price of wheat on January 1 at 10s. 6d. per bushel, but such was the world’s parity that before the end of the month the fixed price had been reduced to 9s. Even at that it was not possible for the Government, to do much business, cis cables to the Melbourne papers were telling the public that Chicago wheat could be placed on the London market at 7s. lid. per bushel, or Is. Id. per bushel less than the Commonwealth Government was asking for wheat, either for export or home consumption. To make matters worse‘‘for the controlling authority, recent cablegrams from London have stated that the wheat now available is sufficient for rill reasonable needs until the. European harvest is garnered. As the result cf the Uni ten States parity being a lot below what tho Commonwealth Government is asking, lhe East is importing wheat from America, instead' of Australia, ae has been the case for some years past.

Further than that, difficulties were made for brokers to buy wheat for export at all."

Mr. Baldwin said he succeeded in buying and shipping S(KI sacks of fowl wheat, and many people in the business in Melbourne had wondered how he- had managed to do it. Such conditions with a record crop on their hands, were veiy extraordinary. The handling of file, harvest was a big thing in itself. The number of bags of wheat handled on certain days on the Victorian railways was as follows I :—January 31, 9G.955 bags (each holding 2} bushels); February 1, 104.192 bags; February 2, 84,999 bags; February 3, 95,169 bags; February 4, 96,374 bags; February 5, 76,643 bags; total for the week. 554.332 bags. Between December 16 and Feliruary 5, 4,041,809 bags were loaded. Tile total number of bags of wheat loaded at M iJliamslown up to February 6 was 1,443,471 bags. This seemed a lot, but it was not much when it wa& considered that the total crop was something in the vicinity of 40,000,000 bushels. Tho high prices ruling for wheat, had grievously injured the milling trade, and when Mr. Baldwin was in Melbourne most of the wills were working one ehift only instead of three, a condition due to lost markets and the fact that a great many ships were laid up, because the high running cost did not work in harmoniously with tho lower freights now ruling. The flourmillers of Australia could not expect to get much help from New Zealand, as the Government would be more disposed to buy wheat than flour, in order to keep our own mills going. How the Commonwealth Government hoped’to deal with the surplus of wheat had yet to be determined. There was a good deal of talk about carrying it over until tho next season by means of in eilos, some of which were erected and others were in tho process of erection. By that means they hoped to avoid its destruction by mice. The silo was just now much in evidence. All over the country farmers' were buying up plain Mid corrugated iron tanks for the storage of oats, stacking one on top of tho other, but stored wheat was not money, and money was what was wanted as urgently In Australia as anywhere else, fl he Governments and municipal bodies were offering 5| and: 6 per cent, for money, and it d'id not seem politic to contemplate storage on a vast scale, when the wheat could bo converted rate money. One had been made between tWe Victorian' Wheat Commission and the millers, whereby 3500 tons of flour, 80 per cent, extraction, would be gristed for the Egyptian Government, fl he price was not published.