I.—17.

88

[R. E. ALEXANDER.

Cost of ploughing is based on the assumption that one man and six horses will plough 27 acres per week. £ s. d. Cost of six horses per week.. .. .. .. .. ..540 Cost of man per week .. .. .. .. .. ..325 Shares (3d. per acre) .. .. .. .. .. ..069 Oil and upkeep of plough .. .. .. .. .. ..016 £8 14 8 No allowance is made in above for a spare horse, which is usually kept to provide against accidents, sickness, sore shoulders, &c. Mr. Wright.'] Could you give us an estimate of the cost of harvesting the Dominion wheat crop, taking it at 8,000,000 bushels : what would be a fair sum to pay for the cost of harvesting ? —I have not gone into those figures. I know what used to be the contract prices : 15s. an acre was the contract price for harvesting, and stooking and stacking added to that price would make it something like £1.75. 6d. to £1 10s. by contract. Would it be on the conservative side to say harvesting costs would be 6d. a bushel ? —lt costs more than that. If we take it at 6d. a bushel to harvest the crop, that is well within the mark ?—Oh, yes. At 6d. a bushel for 8,000,000 bushels for harvesting, that would make the cost £200,000 a year ? — Yes. I think you and Dr. Hilgendorf have gone into the costs of farm labour and found that there would be a reduction of one permanent hand for every 250 acres of wheat grown ? That would be a permanent reduction of wheat hands of 1,300 in the wheat area ? —One of the students worked out the figure and we checked it. That was the result of his finding. They would be skilled farm hands —skilled in wheat-raising I—The1 —The best type of men you would get in the wheat areas. Could you utilize the services of those men on farming if you discontinued or seriously diminished wheat-growing ? —You mean the surplus labour. They would be definitely displaced. What would be the cost per bushel for threshing the 8,000,000 bushels ? —The contract price would be 6d. a bushel. That would be another £200,000 ?—Yes. I think it is safe to say that 50 per cent, of that goes in the payment of wages ? —A little over 50 per cent. We will say 50 per cent. That is a loss of £100,000 a year on wages alone for threshing I—Yes.1 —Yes. With regard to the cartage contractors, I think you put that down at 6d. a sack ? —6d. a sack is what we are paying in the district with which lam acquainted. It would be roughly 2d. a bushel. That would be another £66,000 for cartage contractors in moving the wheat ? —Yes. It is not all done by contract. The farmer would do it sometimes, but he would pay it out in wages. He could not, however, do it for under 2d. a bushel. Do you happen to know how many tons of twine it takes to harvest a crop of wheat ?—ln running out the number of costs you can charge ujd twine at Id. a bushel —that is, taking the average cost of twine in New Zealand. For a 40-bushel crop it would run. out at 3s. 4d. an acre, and for a 30-bushel crop 2s. 6d. an acre. That would be £30,000 or £40,000 in twine alone ? —Over £40,000. Do you know how many tons of flax it takes to make a ton of twine ? —No. The flax mainly comes from the North Island, does it not \ —l do not know where it comes from. Some of the twine is made in the South Island and some in the North Island. The Chairman.'] By what you have said in your statement you seem to have the idea that some one is out specially to kill the wheat-grower ? —That is the prevailing idea. What foundation have you for that idea ?—There are two ways of drowning a man: one is to throw him into the river, and another way is to keep his head under water ; and if the returns to the wheat-grower are very much reduced you will kill him. That is an assumption ? —That is the assumption I am going on —that the wheat-grower would be killed. I think you are beginning with the wrong idea. The previous witness said very much the same thing. He thought it was apparent some one was out to eliminate the wheat-grower altogether. No one has suggested that in evidence before this Committee—that is, that the wheat-grower should be eliminated or abolished ? —lt has been, suggested in the newspapers that the wheat-grower is getting too much for his wheat. I have never heard it suggested that the grower was getting too much, but it has been suggested that the man who buys his bread pays too much for the bread ? —Why are you making inquiries about the sliding scale ? The Government set up this Committee to inquire into the wheat industry ? —lt should have been an inquiry into the cost of bread-production. That will come within the scope of the Committee later on. What were your grounds for assuming that there was an evident desire to eliminate the wheat-grower completely ? —We must base our assumption on something. If we came up here and did not have any assumption at all, how could we give you any evidence ?