WHEAT ENQUIRY

Hokitika Guardian, 5 September 1929, Page 7

WHEAT ENQUIRY

EVIDENCE GIVEN. (By Telegraph—Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Sept. 4. Further evidence was hestrd to-day by the Special Committee of the House consider in the wheat duties question. Mr McDonald, at one time President of the Board of Trade, outlined what had been done by the Government during the war and said that nnd. it declared in favour of a free trade policy, the wheat industry in New Zealand would have gone out of existence. If it was desirable that New Zealand should produce sufficient wheat to be independent of importation, and he agreed it was, then he knew of no better method of carrying out that policy than the sliding or fluctuating scale of duties. It effected the ob;ect° aimed at with a minimum of Government interference. To Hon Forbes: Witness said he did not think it would be wise to depend on . the Australian markets. There was a constant danger of labotir difficulties and these were likely to lead to panic conditions in New Zealand. In contradistinction, witness pointed out that England could draw on the whole world for wheat. To a question, Did he think the farmer g-t the benefit of the present protection? witness replied, Yes, to tho full. A wheat grower. Ruddenklou, of Waimatc, gave evidence that under normal conditions the costs of producing wheat in the Dominion were in(initeiy higher than in Australia and land values and tax on wheat-growing lands were also much higher. Protection ill' the form of a bounty on subsidy did not offer stability or continuity to reasonable remunerative selling price as it did not keep the Australian wheat out, and any form fixed duty lent itself to dumping.