Part 8

Page 551
image 16 of 100

This transcription is complete

8873. Do you know what plant the New South Wales people propose to put down as compared with their total harvest expectation? - I cannot tell you. It is being put down by the firm that was over here, Metcalf & Co.

8874. Can you tell us of any authority in Australia who can give us an opinion different from that of Metcalf & Co.? - I cannot. That is a matter we have never touched here. We have a few farmers in the country who are Canadians, and who have handled their wheat in Canada in bulk. At Katanning you can see what can be done by storing and handling wheat in a cheap and rapid manner. There are three big silos there, and the wheat is run out to any part of the mill by gravitation.

8875. Have you calculated from the estimates put forward what would be the saving, or otherwise, by adopting bulk handling as against bags? - We think we would save our bags.

8876-7. Is that an exact calculation? - You cannot make it exact, but it is based on the cost of handling in other bulk handling countries and on our wages system here, and what our bags cost here. Last year the saving would have been 3d. or 3½d. a bushel. Bags cost us as much as 10s. at one period. If ever again we came to a time like this, and we had to stack our wheat, you can see the risk and waste that follows the stacking.

8878. There would be two-thirds, in the case of an emergency, to take care of itself? - A farmer would have a small silo in his own place. The silo expenses on the farm would not be more than two years bags at the outside.

8879. Will you make a statement of your views in respect to the tariff question? - I do not know that we can go into it in one day; it would require two or three days. It is like a religion, whether you are a Roman Catholic or a Protestant, because you can argue on the matter for weeks. But just taking it shortly, I look at it this way. The Commission are desirous of finding out every known way, and perhaps some unknown way of reducing the cost of production in Western Australia, and doing away with waste as much as possible. We, as an association, consider that part of our life, and our heavy costs are wrapped up in the word "tariff". We today are asking for a reduction, at least in our machinery, tools of trade and bags - cornsacks and bran and chaff bags. But we hold that we would have to go further than that if we are going to give the people in the industry the relief that is necessary. We do not want everything at once; some people think the farmers do. We want to go carefully into the matter and get a little at a time, and we think that if we get that which has been promised to us today, that is, relief in the matter of tools of trade, machinery and bags, it will go a long way towards assisting the farmer in reducing the cost of production. After that, of course, we intend to go further. Our argument is that the primary producers - I mean every primary producer in the State - have to carry the secondary industries, and because of that we gold that the secondary industries should not be built up at the expense of the primary industries. That, we contend, is being done today. A politician speaking in Perth about three years ago made use of the phrase that the man neglected the primary industries and gave most of his thought to secondary industries. That man was not only a statesman but an enemy to his country. in England the same thing obtains. The primary industries must be helped, not charity help, but given every opportunity to extend and expand, and we think that our business should be treated as any other business is. If a manufacturer puts money into a business and manufactures an article he does mot wait until some people who know nothing about the article, or what they cost to manufacture, comes along and fixes the price at which the article shall be sold, but he says to himself " I have put so much money into this business, it has cost so much for the raw material and it has cost so much for working it up into the finished product, and a fair profit to me is 5 per cent. or 10 per cent. or 15 per cent or 20 per cent." and he puts that on to his price. We today, as farmers of Western Australia, take our land, we pay for our tools and for every article we use almost, we pay one-fifth either into the customs or into the pockets of the people who locally manufacture that article. We use, therefore, protected machinery, protected bags, protected twine. We use further, which is more hurtful, protected labour. It is fixed and protected by the Arbitration Court and then they turn round and we are supposed to sell our product in the free trade markets of the world to compete with the cheapest labour of the world, the Russian labour, the Coolie labour of India, as competition is the life of trade, it is death to us. We do not get a fair chance to compete. If we are to get near a fair trade proposition we must take off some of the things that are hurting us today. We think we shall be able to make a better showing for ourselves and our industry than we are doing today if that is done. Two years ago we had 10 per cent. put on our bags. Our bags, I think, cost us £616,000 about two years ago. Ten per cent. on that is a very fair item to us. We have asked the Parliament to take that duty off this year and we think it will be done. That is so much success for us. If we get these things further reduced, so much the better for us. That is our main idea in our protection. We cannot put a farthing on the price of our wheat in London, in America or Africa, but we can take it off the cost of production if our country will let us. If the country considers that today the farming industry, the wheat industry, are in a prosperous condition, they will not remove anything. When we consider that Perth has 42 per cent. of the people of Western Australia in it and that the trend of the rule of population is to get into Perth then there is something wrong with our rural population. We think it is that the people are not as prosperous as they should be. If we can remedy that, we are going to make a happy and prosperous it only means that we are giving them a chance of making good. That is practically all I have to say.

8880. Can you give us any specific case in which you consider that the tariff acts harshly? - The bags, for instance. Take another, the harvester. The farmer has to pay in duty £14 on it being landed here. It does not matter whether that machine was imported from America, from Canada or from England or whether it is make here in Western Australia, we have to pay the same duty on the article that is made in Victoria as we do on the article that comes from Canada, with this dif-