Part 9

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This transcription is complete

have five sub-agents, each competing with the other to secure the wheat. These sub-agents are paid by results, and so each is anxious to obtain as much wheat as possible. This is a vicious system, for there are various ways in which an agent can extend favour to the farmer if the farmer will favour him in return. Moreover, if the sub-agent is paid well at 1½d., he can offer the farmer a monetary consideration, say, per thousand bags for his wheat. And for all this the general scheme and the farmers in general have to suffer. Second-hand bags are taken into the stacks and a good deal of trouble is caused by loss and by breakages of bags and spilling of wheat. I have seen second-hand bags and even super bags in the stack. But if one man were in charge of a siding, and was responsible to a central control, there would be no such thing as these irregularities.

9904. It is very hard to fix the damage and it is problematical whether the scheme will recover it?—Yes.

9905. Is it a fact that wheat sent in bulk to the ports of Great Britain brings a lower price than wheat in bags?—As a rule it brings from 3d. to 8d. per quarter less than wheat in bulk. And the price of bags in May and June in England was from 5s. 6d. to 6s. per dozen.

9906. By Mr. PAYNTER: The benefit in price does not come back to the farmer but to the merchant?—The only merchant to-day is the Minister. Even before the present system the merchant, in making his price, took all those things into consideration. He buys and sells concurrently, making allowance for all contingencies.

9907. By Mr. CLARKSON: Are you of opinion that bulk handling would decrease the farmer's costs?—I do not think it would make much, if any, difference. Bulk handling would effect no great economy except in three directions. (1) It will stop a certain amount of waste in the wheat. (2) It will store it for a longer time in better condition. (3) It will partially solve the labour difficulty on the wharf and at sidings where silos are provided.

9908. If silos were provided for the storage of the wheat crop, would they come under your control as manager of the scheme?—Possibly they would.

9909. Would you, in that event, be an advocate for bulk handling?—I am an advocate for bulk handling all the time. I do not think it will save the farmer much, but it is a very much better system of handling wheat.

9910. It could be put into effect for the storage of wheat by silos?—Yes, but probably not for less storage than a farthing per bushel per month, or 3d. per annum. If you use silos merely for storage without the bulk handling system, you must still have elevators for filling the silos, and when you wish to take the wheat away you must either provide bulk wagons, or bag it, which would render the whole expenditure on silos useless. If you can bulk handle it from the silo by belt to the bulk railway truck for despatch through the bulk handling facilities on the wharf, it is a reasonable proposal. Again, the silo afford a much better means of doctoring wheat. At present our wheat, with so wet a season, is in great danger of weevil. If we had silos and could pour that wheat into those silos, we could doctor it and kill the weevil, but nothing of the sort can be done in the stack. The best way of treating weevil in the stack is with cyanogen, a very light gas. But for this an impervious cover for the stack is required, at a prohibitive cost. A tube can be put half-way down in the stack when it is being built, and that tube can be used as a channel for a heavy gas permeating downwards. But none of the expedients are really effective in the stack. If we had silos, we could blow the gas up through the bottom, or better still, we could pour in carbon dioxide, which is not poisonous like cyanogen, but is merely an asphyxiating gas, smothering thereby all life in the wheat.

9911. From what you say, silos are imperative for the handling of the harvest?—Yes. However, there are many things to be taken into consideration. Our utmost buildable silos, if we got the material, would be for about two million bushels, and we shall have prospectively at least nine million bushels beyond that in the next harvest. Therefore, the bulk of it must still be handled in some other way.

9912. By Mr. PAYNTER: We are told that the wheat left at the bottom of a stack has to be bagged, brought to Fremantle, and returned to Perth before it is sold?—My procedure has been that where wheat was of sufficient value to bear railage, it is to be sent down, whereas if the railage is as much as the wheat is worth, it is to be sold on the spot. I have ordered cleaning machines from the East purposely for the cleaning of that class of wheat, and I am trying to get it housed at North Fremantle in a shed where we can dry and re-condition such damaged wheat. There is plenty of it with mouldy grains mixed with perfectly good stock. That is where the damage takes place. Machinery would take most of those mouldy grains out and restore a lot of the wheat to a shipable condition, and best of all, it would stop the deterioration from going further.

9913. Last week at Woolundra I saw three men scraping up wheat with their hands prior to bagging it and sending it down here?—That is dirty wheat, pick-ups from disassembled stacks. The only people who could make use of it are, strange to say, the starchmakers. We have none here but they have them in the East, and they are using this wheat for the starch, as even the dirtiest looking wheat contains a kernel of white starchy matter.

9914. Have you seen the report of the storage commission?—Yes.

9915. Does it contemplate the storage of the wheat at the port or provide for elevators all over the country?—All over the country as well as ports. Each State has to recommend where to put the silos.

9916. By Mr. PAYNTER: Do you think the carriage of the wheat in bulk tends to better condition than in bags?—No, if you have wheat-tight farmers' wagons and railway trucks.

9917. By Mr. CLARKSON: Shipping, more particularly?—There is no difference. I have seen letters from Naples, where they have both systems. There is nothing to choose between the bulk wheat and the bag wheat as to the condition in which it arrives at its destination.

9918. The only thing is the value of the bags there?—There is also the discharge by the elevators being much quicker than by the bags and saving ship's time.

9919. Is it a fact that a lot of the wheat which goes to the ports in the old world is re-bagged for