9557. Mr. GRAY: With expeditious transit that should not be necessary.

9558. Mr. HAYMAN: The longest rail journeys are from Meekatharra and Cue, and the people there say they would rather send their stock right through to Robb's Jetty in one journey than untruck it, say, at Mullewa, for watering purposes.

9559. Mr. HAYMAN: With regard to the freight on stud stock, if you want to send a single bull anywhere, the freight is enormous. It has frequently cost between £5 and £6 to get a bull in, while the rate on horses is very much less. Stud rate is always charged for bulls. I do not see why the rate should be greater than that for a single draught horse.

9560. Mr. GRAY: If you load on animal in an ordinary truck the railway people have the privilege of putting in the other stick with it. If you load a horse in a horse box to go to, say, Kellerberrin, and I have another five to go to the same place, the railways will put them together. Yet, they will charge you one-third freight and they will charge me full freight, and that is in an open truck. I have a table here showing the comparative cost of trucking bulls, stallions and boars. In the first table I have shown the cost of the freight on a bull from, say, Pinjarra to Dinninup, a distance of 135 miles. this would be £2 5s. 11d. If you sent a milch cow the same distance in a similar truck, the freight would be 19s. 5d. If you wanted to send a half-small truck, carrying four store cattle, the freight from Pinjarra to Dinninup would be £1 18s. 9d. In other words, you can get four store cattle sent for less money than one stud bull. I have also run out a table showing the cost of getting a stallion from, say, West Perth to Katanning, a distance of 226 miles. The freight for sending a number of ordinary stock from West Perth to Katanning would be only £2 6s. The freight on a half-small truck, carrying three horses over that distance, would be £4 12s. With reference to pigs in crates, the freight on a boar or sow consigned from Midland to Kellerberrin, 123 miles, would be 10s. 3d. The cost of a half-small truck of 30 pigs would be £1 15s. 9d. In comparison with the freight on store stock, the freight on stud stock is out of all reason, and in many instances sales are prevented through these excessive freights which are charged. That is a question that can be brought pretty pointedly before the Government. Facilities should be given for the carriage of recognised stud stock on a reasonable basis.

9561. Mr. HAYMAN: Up to the present time a bit of money has been spent at the Midland yards, and those yards have been improved, but they are really nothing like what they ought to be. During the winter months the yardings are not very big, and there is plenty of room, but in summer when the lambs come in the marketings are big, I do not think the agents will be able to handle the stuff properly. The Minister for Lands, Mr. Lefroy, has been there and has conferred with the agents. He knows all about stock and is aware that many improvements are necessary, but he says the Government have no money with which to carry out those improvements. The Government did something when they paved the yards, and put in a few gates, but the people from the other side laughed at the accommodation that we have there.

9563. Mr. HAMILTON: The yards are capable of handling 6,000 sheep, but when we get up to 8,000 or 10,000, which will probably be the case in summer, it will not be possible to handle them.

9564. Mr. VENN: If the yards are not increased in size and you have big yardings, it will be necessary to hold two sales a week.

9565. Mr HAYMAN: We will have to sell the best way we can, and if the accommodation is not there, the farmer does not get a fair deal. The farmer may lose as much as 1s. a head of sheep through these sheep not being properly drafted, and if we have not the yards, we cannot properly draft the sheep. Grading is essential to get the best price. I think there ought to be at least four big yards, where there could be long watering troughs, where the stock could be watered. The big lines from the Murchison come in there and are put into the yards straightaway. They are bought by Kalgoorlie men in the summer and trucked away again immediately, and it is sometimes six days before the sheep get a drink. The present troughs are only 6ft. long, and consequently there are many sheep that never get a drink at all. All that is wanted is a big watering yard. The same thing applies to cattle. All these facilities are important from the pint of view of the owner. We were all fined some time back for cruelty to animals, but of course it was not the fault of the agents: it was the fault of the Government for not providing proper troughing. With regard to pigs, the yards will not hold them and there are far more pings in the country this year than people have any idea of.

9566. Mr. CLARKSON: What proportion of pigs that go through that yard would you say were suitable for bacon purposes?

9567. Mr. GRAY: I should say, roughly, 15 per cent.

9568. Mr. CLARKSON: We can take it that the people in the country do not bring their pigs to the bacon stage?

9569. Mr. HAYMAN: They cannot wait for the money. They reckon it is payable to sell them as good porkers.

9570. Mr. HAMILTON: I think the price of wheat is responsible for the large yardings.

9571. Mr. GRAY: The Government Statistician told us this morning that on the 31st December, 1914, there were 59,816 pigs in the State. On the 31st December, 1915, there were 58,231. At the end of 1916, there were approximately 90,000 in the State. This shows a 50 per cent. increase and that is more or less borne out in the metropolitan yards by the increased yardings. From the 1st July, 1915, to the 30th June, 1916, the agents yarded in the metropolitan yards 15,020 pigs. From the 1st July, 1916, up to yesterday, a period of 11 months, there were 26,401 pigs penned, representing 11,000 more than in the preceding 12 months. I am of the opinion that a lot of the people sending in pigs now were buying store pigs when they had pinched or shrivelled grain on hand for which they could not get a remunerative price. They fed the pigs on it and as you know pigs breed rapidly, and now that wheat is at a high price, they cannot afford to continue to feed them. Consequently they are unloading the pigs.

9572. Mr. VENN: Do you think that a bacon factory would benefit the industry in Western Australia?