Harry Albert Griffiths, M.L.A., sworn and examined:

7729. By the Chairman: You will have had a long acquaintance with water supply questions and we will invite you to make a statement to us on the subject? -There was a general feeling among the farmers at the time when the scheme was started that they should go in for it. Further, I attended a meeting one Sunday afternoon and was instrumental in stopping a number of them from going in for the extension and today they thank me for it. There were some who went in for it and they have ever since been complaining that they have taken on a burden that they cannot carry. The Kellerberrin proposition with which you are acquainted proposed two pence per acre and I personally had something to do with the farming of the proposal.

7730. That was the radius of three miles from the pipe track instead of one mile as at present? -Yes. Then Bruce Rock had a proposal which involved one third of the rates paid the first year and the balance in three or four years. I have had some correspondence which I have sent on to you in this connection. Then in regard to your itinerary, I have written to about fifty people arguing them to make use of the Commission and give evidence. I have done that to augment the work that Mr Lee has already done. There is a general complaint that the 6s. rate and the 8s rate do not pay. How is it that it is made out that the 2s 6d. rate is taken hundreds of miles out into the bush. The Goldfields scheme is looked upon as a national matter and the agricultural scheme should be looked upon similarly.

7731. The scheme shows a loss of £50,000? -If gold is a national matter, water supply to the Goldfields a national matter, so is wheat growing a national matter. I have known farmers to have to cart their water for fifteen miles, but it is only when a farm is at its maximum capacity that the farmer can utilise the water. But I believe in the farmers helping themselves and there on settler, Mr Morley, who started off with a pot hole and in the interval he carted water for four miles; meantime he did 400 ft. of boring and 90 ft. of sinking and finally he got a good supply of water at 110ft., and he has it now equipped with a windmill and working economically. Other farmers might well follow his example. And there are farmers who are close to public wells who will not take the trouble to look after them although they use the water from them. I might mention in regard to the evidence you took at Kellerberrin that it seems as though some reflection were made upon the efforts of certain settlers who, though they knew the proper methods of dry farming, had not them means to carry them out in the manner in which Mr Patterson has.

7732. The Chairman: There are shrewd men on the Commission and that fact has not escaped them. We are quite alive to our work and we are not visionaries.

7733. By Mr Clarkson: I read a letter published in the local paper expressing astonishment with the Commission who admire Mr Patterson's crops and the inference was a reflection on all the others? -I had nothing to do with that. In fact, I admire what Mr Patterson has done for the industry. When he started people used to say that he could not make it pay but he had done so.

7734. I am aware that a large number of farmers cannot adopt the best methods of farming, but they do not consider sufficiently whether they can afford to do without those proper methods? -From the time the Commission started you will find that I have been doing work that would be helpful to you. The whole object is to increase the productivity of the soil; that is the main thing to consider. It is admitted that stock are essential, but I have been asked to obtain sums of £300 for stock and fencing, but I have said that it would be better for a man to start with a pig, a cow and some fowls as Mr McLernon did at Kellerberrin, who started with two head of stock that did not cost him a penny piece yet he made a big cheque by their sale and they were fed entirely on his waste material. I may say also that I wrote to the Minister and asked him to watch for the time when pigs would be increasing and that we would require markets for them, and I was assured that he would do so. There are many farmers such as Mr Ockerby and Mr Monger who went through the drought and showed a profit on their pigs. There is another man whose name I do not know, but he lives at Yorkrakine, who had done very well with pigs; but so far from going to the Government and ask them for 300 sheep I am discouraging the idea and urging them to start with a few fowls. I am of opinion from what I have been told by reliable persons, that the dry Eastern districts—