mean he was not able to give the actual figures. The 8½ million bushel capacity in the storage sheds last year cost 3.2d. per bushel.

8190. What was the total cost? — It was £113,000; £80,000 for sheds, £28,000 for sidings; £5,000 for water and other charges. Then there is rent, per annum, Spencer's Brook £25, Narrogin £20. I have not taken the rent into account.

8191. You mean to say Mr. Pearse was not in a position to know the cost of the sheds when he gave evidence here on the 24th July? — The actual cost of the iron. That is what he told me.

8192. That is five months after they were erected and the iron was here at the time? — The iron was bought through the Australian Wheat Board. 8193. But they knew the price they were paying for it? — I cannot be responsible for what Mr. Pearse says. I do not want to cause any trouble.

8194. Five months after. The sheds were used in January. It is seven months after? — I want to direct your attention to the cost of the sheds, because in the report of the Advisory Board the complete system was estimated to cost 7¾d. and that was with timber. Crib work silos at the country sidings, about which there is a difference of opinion whether they are better or not, they should be all cement; they would be cheaper than concrete, which would be more permanent and less liable to fire. The cost would be 7¾d. and last year we paid for 8½ million storage capacity 3½d.

8195. Mr Pearse's evidence was 2½d.? — There are the figures. Anyone can run them out; 3•2d. for 1917/18 and 2•6d estimated for the coming season. It is rather an interesting point in comparing silos with the storage sheds. When you build a silo with a surface capacity you have no unoccupied interstices. You fill the whole thing up. In the storage shed ostensibly it is 8½ million bushels. That is to say, you store that many bushels of wheat in it. When you work out the capacity of the shed 18ft. high, 22ft. at the back, 14ft. wide 17,862ft. long, express those cubic feet as bushels and it works out at 11 million bushels. When you build a shed to hold 8½ million bushels, as the Public Works Department put it,it is really 11 million bushel capacity.

8196. By Hon. J. F. ALLEN: A bushel is about 1½ft.? — Yes.

8197. By the CHAIRMAN: I cannot understand Mr. Pearse's figures referring to seven months after the erection of the sheds? — This year the estimate cost is 2•d. without that £50 of rent. The question afterwards arises, with this temporary storage business, whether the lines laid into the sheds are not going to be a loss. If the Wheat Pool are paying interest and sinking fund on those sheds, the sheds should belong to the farming industry, having been paid for out of the wheat.

8198. I understand that they will become the property of the farmers; they are to be sold and the residual value will go back to the pool? — But the farming industry should have some say in whether the sheds are to be sold or are to be utilised in connection with the future handling of wheat.

8199. The Commission have recommended that legislative action be taken in that respect? — There is another point I would like to stress while on the comparison of sheds with silos, because it is just these various items accumulating that make the difference in any one big method of dealing with the product, or of establishing an industry or an innovation. What is the position as regards the sheds last year? You gentlemen know better than I do. In the present state of my knowledge, however, it seems to me that the wheat is being put into the sheds weevily. The sheds cannot be disinfected thoroughly, and therefore we require new sheds to safeguard the wheat. But what guarantee have we that the next lot of sheds will not be weevily. If we had the concrete silos, then I am of the opinion — and it would take a good deal to alter that opinion — that they can be thoroughly disinfected if the weevil gets into them.

8200. By Hon. J. F. ALLEN: What proportion of the harvest would you suggest to be placed in silos? — From 25 to 40 per cent.

8201. Each year? — Not each year. We are dealing with 50 per cent. under the milling contracts.

8202. But we are putting up sheds this year for the coming harvest, and we already have last year's harvest in the sheds. What proportion of the whole quantity, of the two harvests, would you put into the bins? — At any rate before erecting any more sheds, I would say, put up provision for 5 million bushels. You certainly could utilise that provision year after year, provided you got the bins emptied.

8203. By the CHAIRMAN: You are aware of the system it is proposed to adopt here, and already adopted in the Eastern States, of putting up one large bin to hold 40,000 bushels? — Yes. That is the minimum unit. But out of 41 probable sites with that minimum of 40,000 bushels, only about a dozen, I think, would be restricted to that one unit. The other 30, approximately, would have two or three or four units. Their output would warrant that.

8204. By Hon. J. F. ALLEN: On what are those figures based? — On the yield of the different sidings.

8205. Not on the suggestions submitted to the government in connection with the recent bulk handling proposition? — They are based on the distribution of the wheat.

8206. On your own figures, I take it? — No. They are based on the information supplied by the advisory board.

8207. By the CHAIRMAN: If a large quantity of wheat were stored in one bin, it would be necessary to remove that wheat occasionally? — I believe so.

8208. Where would you put the wheat while you were removing it? — You will not have all your own bins full. In three quarters of the sites the yield is sufficient to enable you to have two or three or four units.

8209. You agree one must have special bins for moving the wheat? — You cannot empty one bin and still keep the stuff in it.

8210. Are you aware that that is the intention? — I am not sufficiently conversant with the subject to know where the one unit comes in. But the intention, I understand, is that wherever one bin is being erected, when the time comes for the bulk handling, a working house shall be erected in association with the elevator.

8211. But the position to-day is that Metcalf's by their plans recommend the putting up at sidings of bins which will hold the wheat available at the sidings? — Not necessarily in one bin.

8212. It all depends? — If there is 40,000 bushels capacity, the wheat will be put in only one bin. But at many centres there would be two or three or four bins.

8213. But the proposal is only to put up the bins necessary to contain the wheat to be handled at the siding, or, rather, a portion of the wheat about one-third. From evidence we have had from all the men who have handled wheat, it appears necessary that the wheat should be shifted. Is it not necessary, then, that special bins should be erected for the purpose of removing the wheat? — I do not know whether it is possible to transfer the wheat by circulating it, and getting that amount of alteration which the millers say is required. In a matter like this, however, I would not place too much credence in what the millers as a milling body, in comparison with what the farmers as a farming body, say.

8214. But what do the farmers know about the lengthened storage of wheat? — Nothing. The people who could give evidence on that would be people in the dry parts of United States of America and in the Old Country who are handling wheat in storage bins, and in my opinion Metcalf & Co. value their reputation too much to recommend anything unsuitable.

8215. By Mr. HARRISON: You understand that according to the condition of the wheat in any big storage capacity the length of period stored depends; it depends on the quality of the wheat when going into the store? — Yes.

8216. If the wheat was moist, would it be possible to contain the wheat without moving? — I should anticipate that.

8217. We have it in evidence that one cannot hold wheat for more than four months at the outside without its being moved. Therefore, the storage capacity in concrete silos would require an extra bin at each centre for the removal of the wheat if stored for more than four months. Do you think that has been considered by the farmers generally in this State? — I do not think the farmers as a whole know that the wheat has to be moved in the silo in that way. But that statement is not sufficient for wiping out the present grain elevators proposal. Have you evidence that as to the age of moisture in wheat which will necessitate it being turned over? Clean wheat put into silos in the wheat ares proper ought to keep a year or two, if not many years.

8218. If the wheat is to be moved, it would mean that at each storage place there must be capacity for changing the wheat? — Yes. It would appear so if the wheat needed turning over.

8219.That is, an extra empty bin of the capacity of the other units? — An extra bin of the unit capacity. But that does not double the cost right through.

8220. Still, one bin at a siding would be useless for that purpose. An empty bin is required as well as the full bin? — Yes. If the wheat has to be shifted and abnormal war conditions continue.

8221. Would not that bring about extra cost beyond what has been estimated? — Yes, if such conditions obtain.