AUSTRALIAN WHEAT.

Taranaki Daily News, 29 December 1917, Page 7

AUSTRALIAN WHEAT.

VERY SERIOUS OUTLOOK. The position that is developing in Australia in regard to wheat is very serious, a Sydney correspondent writes. For three years Australia has been producing increasing quantities of wheat. For three years the number of ships available to carry that wheat to Britain has been steadily decreasing, Yet Britain has bought and paid for the greater part of all the grain produced in. Australia. Thatwheat to-day is lying in huge sacks all over New South Wales and Victoria. There are millions of bushels of it, and it is being preyed upon Ty myriads of mice and damaged by weather. It will, at the present rate, take over two years to ship the accumulated wheat to Britain, So far as the new season's wheat is concerned there has been no official pronouncement, but it is known positively that Britain has declined to purchase the new harvest. The Imperial authorities have explained that they have now more Australian wheat than they can ship, that they can buy wheat in Canada and the Argentine as readily as In Australia, and that her limited ships can visit those countries twice or thrice, while they are visiting Australia once. The position is receiving the most urgent attention ofthe State and tfye Federal' Governments. The Xew South Wales State Government has let contracts for wheat silos and terminal elevators which are to oost more than £1,000,000. Once in the silos the v.-he*t would keep for years. But the building of silos is a huge Undertaking, and they cannot be ready before the 191S-H) harvest. Meanwhile, the precious grain of tile 1917-18 harvest is beginning to flow in. All the stores are full, and; there are not sufficient sack's to go round.'