CANADIAN WHEAT

Hokitika Guardian, 8 November 1929, Page 2

CANADIAN WHEAT

CURRENT RULING PRICES

POOL S REFUSAL TO SELL.

VANCOUVER, October 16

The Canadian Wheat Pool, in an official statement, takes all responsibility for refusing to sell at current ruling prices. Were wheat sold, at presentprice levels, having disregard to the grade of the crop, this only promises a gross farm income of £59,600.(KX), or in approximate reduction in the buying power of the West of £34,000,000. 'ine value of last year’s "crop was £94,000,000.

The- present season’s crop is estimated at 280,000,000 bushels—about half the crop threshed last year. In the face -of this comparatively light crop, terminal storage is being overextended while the surplus wheat is backing up into the country. Railway companies are rationing cars for wheat and lake grain-carirers are taking on winter storage. The situation lias been squarely la’d at the door of tire Wheat Pool, and the Wheat Pool has accepted the responsibility. If the Pool’s price were reduced there- would be no difficulty in making sales and the blockage would be at an end, but the Pool says it will not place h.gh-grade wheat on the bargain.

European buyers are just as firm in their stand not to buy at the Pool’s price. It lias had to face sharp criticism at borne. Steamship companies have laid up some of their Great Lake carriers in winter quarters, and some have expressed bitterness at the Wheat Pool’s stand. Railways are losing heavily, but tbe Pool will not budge from its position. The farmers are hell iml it to a man. The Pool is fortified in its stand by the opinions of the hanks. The Canadian Bank of Commerce has publicly expressed its view that the Pool is taking a sound stand in its present policy. 'The bank says it is as mu ll the privilege of the farmers and their marketing organisations to refuse to sell on a declining market. Tt predicts reduced world supplies and states that only a- remarkable recovery can provide normal supplies from Australia and the Argentine.

The estimated average wheat yield ior Alberta is from 10 to 12 bushels an aero and a fair price is held to he a necessity if actual want is to be avoided. “No one,” says the Pool statement, “should delude himself that Western Canadian farmers are rolling in wealth. Figures recently compiled show that the survey conducted on 12,000 representative United States' farms the average profit was 1334 dollars in the twelve- months of 1928. 'I he average investment in land was 1d,416 dollars. Deducting six per cent, interest on the investment shows me farmer a net profit of 434 dollars for a year of labour. I do not know if a similar survey has ever been made in Canada, but it is safe to predict that returns would not average mu h higher. The wheat producer of the Canadian Prairies is not a ‘profiteer,’ and in fact ranks among the lowest paid of all workers.”