DUTY ON WHEAT

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 719, 19 July 1929, Page 6

DUTY ON WHEAT

SPECIAL COMMITTEE’S INVESTIGATIONS ABIDING BY DECISION (THE SUN’S Parliamentary Reporter.) PARLIAMENT BLDGS., Thurs. His complete willingness to abide by the decisions of the special committee to be appointed to investigate the question of wheat duties was expressed in the House last night by the Minister of Agriculture, the Plon. G. W. Forbes. He said that many times he had been asked what was the Government going to do regarding wheat duties? He had consulted the Prime Minister and Cabinet on the point, and then had announced that the Government was making no change so far as the coming season’s crop was concerned, but that a special committee would investigate the facts. He had made that statement several times, but he had found that a certain amount of doubt was cast on its bona fides, and there were whispers that the Government was going back on its word. “I am quite prepared,” he said, “to abido by the decisions of any committee of the House, after the facts and figures have been put forward. The wheat farmers of Canterbury are not asking for any advantage. They are only asking lor the same measure of protection as for any other industry.”