1.—9.

50

[W. HILL.

this will interfere with his work in valuing his wool next day. He cannot move before 8 o'clock a.m., as the telegraph-office is not open, and then his own office is closed. He cannot stop in one place, but has to catch a train or boat to get to another centre to attend and value wool for sale there. The work which a buyer does in his office must accumulate in his absence, and when he gets to his office he must do it when he can—in the evenings generally. To enable buyers to do this they must have clerks there to show the accumulations of work. The wool business commences with shearing, say, in October, and buyers are open to do business when it commences. There were about 24,000 bales sold privately between October and November last, and, after we begin with the sales, the business is influenced by numbers of uncontrollable reasons ; brokers may have had for years a small sale, say, five or six thousand bales ; it may have been that the shearers have got on with their work owing to fine weather ; perhaps the London market has gone up suddenly ; buyers are showing anxiety for wool; and the brokers get increased, quantities in consequence. They may have a staff prepared for a smaller quantity, and therefore the staff must work overtime daily to deal with the increased quantity. Many times the buyer starts away for a sale, and has no idea of the amount of business he is going to do. He must value the wool coming into the sale, and his staff must anticipate the work, but they do not know whether he will do a large or small business. The buyer is dependant on cabled advice from his principals, therefore he gets a staff that can cope with the work on ordinary occasions, and if it happens that he buys an extra quantity the staff must work overtime. I think that it is stated, or made a condition when engaging wool clerks, that work will be expected of them when the work is there whether it is day or night, and they are paid accordingly. It is quite the same with the selling broker as with the buyer. The conditions of sale are as follows in the North Island: " The goods to be weighed by the warehousekeeper, taken away within ten clear days, not including Sundays, at the buyer's expense, and to be paid for in cash before delivery. Such payments to be made before 2 p.m. on prompt day."* With regard to that condition, I think that if the selling broker and buyer had to close their offices at 5 o'clock, it is imposing impossibilities upon us, and the whole wool business of the colony would have to be reorganized. I can name several instances during last wool season when brokers could not possibly have done their work, and comply with the Act; they did not comply with the Act, they could not have done so. There were twice at Christchurch when brokers offeree! 18,000 and 23,000 bales respectively with eight days prompt, that is, buyers had to pay for the wool within eight days of buying. Brokers must deliver the wool within those eight days, and 18,000 bales is a large amount of wool to handle. There is also the weighing, invoicing, and checking. They could not do it, and did not get the invoices out before prompt day, and buyers did not pay. The farmer-would come for his money on the day brokers said they would pay him out; they did not get their money in, and probably their overdraft would not allow them to pay until they got our cheques in. As it was, they did not comply with the conditions of sale. The following sale they had over 23,000 bales. They agreed they could not comply with the conditions and eight prompt, and gave ten days —two extra days. They could not even comply in that case, and they were still twenty-four hours behind with invoices. We could go on doing this working overtime under the conditions which prevailed before this Act, but cannot do so now, and therefore we ask for exemption, or the business is going to be seriously handicapped and disorganized. 95. If you were absolutely exempt, the same as freezing companies and carriers, &c, you would be satisfied ? —lf we were included in that clause, that is all we are asking for. There are a dozen difficulties that crop up with regard to this same thing. For instance, we are buying wool in Napier and the office is in Christchurch, it takes two days to get a letter from there, and that two days must be two days of the prompt. We pay cash absolutely in payment of our wool. The broker will not accept a cheque, and if we do send a cheque, we must wait until the cheque is returned as good before the documents are released. Payment is made by urgent telegram through the banks. With regard to shipping, the shipping offices are exempt under the Act, and I think I am safe in saying that our work is five times greater than that done by shipping.companies regarding a shipment. They do not even make out the bills of lading in some cases —they only make out the manifest. We have invoices, specifications, particulars for Customs, &c, and our documents are just as necessary at Home as the ship's manifest, or the shipmaster dumps the cargo on the wharf and heavy charges are incurred. This work we could not do if we could not work at night to get these documents Home. Buyers often have instructions when and how to ship. Under this Act they could not obey any instructions ; they would have to obey the Act and the client and principal would have to take things as they came. I have had instances when instructions were to buy and ship promptly—l had one in Wellington last year— I bought wool one day, the ship was sailing the next day, and the Vancouver mail was leaving two days afterwards. I bought the wool and made arrangements to get the invoices the night following, to be posted to me at Christchurch, and I got them the second day after the sale. My staff worked at night and caught the Vancouver mail, and it gave us three days' margin on arrival of the ship in London. A mail one week later would be no good. I had 350 bales at £12 10s. per bale, and if this wool had arrived Home before the documents it would have been dumped on the wharf with heavy charges. I had instructions to ship immediately, and I took the risk. We do not often take a risk like that, but it occurs with every Frisco mail that we must have extra work done. A ship carrying her own documents is really no use to us—the Home people want the documents before the ship is alongside. The wool has to be shipped, and if these charges are incurred the grower has to pay them every time. I think the whole matter summed up is practically this : that if this Act remains in its present form, it would mean reorganizing the whole system —namely, extending the period for holding sales, limiting the quantity offered for sale, extending the time for payment to buyers, thereby keeping the farmer longer without his money, increased storage accommodation which would increase the storage-charges, and it would probably mean extending the season another two months, which means two months'

* In the South Island only eight days are allowed.