had the agreement to frame and it was all perfectly new. There had been no such thing done, I believe, in the world before. We had no precedent to follow, and we received no help from the other State. In fact, we rather led other State. We had our agreement drafted before they had their; in fact, we sent them a copy, so as to help them draft their agreement. I think I am right in saying that we were the first to have our agreement signed I know that Victoria did not have the agreement signed until twelve months afterwards. In the early days there was a good deal of delay in formulating the shippers' and millers' agreements. Much time was lost through the action of millers. In fact, all through the millers cause a good deal of delay, and half our work was caused through the humbug and trouble which the millers gave us. They would always have something to say; they though we were trying to get at them. They did not carry out their agreement, and the difficulty was to force them to do so. By the agreement they had to furnish returns weekly, and they had to pay for the wheat at wheat in advance. They did neither of those things, not withstanding the agreement was vary clear on that. It is not easy to enforce these points. There were certain levers which we might have used. We might have escheated their bond, prevent the shipment of flour, or through the commonwealth closed the mill, but apart from those we had difficulty to bring pressure to bear on the millers, and they hindered the work considerably. The position of the committee with the shippers over their agreement was this and we got advice from Mr .Sayer as to how far we could go: A contract was existing. It was an absolute contract between the shippers and the Government. The shippers undertook to do certain work, and they were not doing their work; we were not satisfied with their work. Yet we could nor say, "If you do not do it we will do it" Mr .Sayer told us how far we were neglectful of their interest, because we did not force the shippers to look after their wheat. The answer of the shippers might have been this, "We have undertaken the care of the wheat and pay for any loss, you mind your own business." Nevertheless, we appointed an inspector, and he let us know from time to time how things were going on. We got the report in triplicate, one was sent to me as the farmers' representative, one was sent to the office, and the inspector kept one . In that way we were able to keep a real interest in all that was going on in the country. This was during the first portion of the scheme , while Mr .Johnson was Minister. The verdict generally, not only from the inspector, was that there was general neglect on the part of the agent. They did not take the same care of the wheat as if it had been their own. The steps we took were of little avail, chiefly owing to what I told you. Then came a chance of Government would make no difference. It did not make any difference to me. I was working for the farmers, and continued to do my best, and I intended to see that no politics should come into the scheme, but I am sorry to see the new Minister, Mr .Mitchell, did not come in in that way. He seemed to regard us with a certain amount of suspicion, and with some opposition; I do not know why. But he did not treat us in the same way as the previous Minister did. As I said, he regarded us with suspicion. He wanted to know why this was done. and why this was not done, and when it was explained he found it had been done. The difficulty in running a business concern like this, where there are changes of Ministers, is to have continuance of policy. In the first place, a certain policy is designed, and then there is a break of Ministers and he has a feeling against the previous Government, and he think what the committee had done under the previous government was wrong. He comes in suspicious, and he is going to alter this and that. This disturbs the work; in fact, the work of the committee is generally impaired; there is not the slightest doubt that .When you have a Minister who view with suspicion, and regards your work as generally wrong, because he happens to hold different view to another Minister, although politics should never come into the scheme, there is bound to be trouble. The new Minister did not attend the meetings. The policy he adopted was to send minutes along for the opinion of the committee on certain points. We got the minutes and gave our opinion on them, and they went back to the minister. There would be no finality at the meeting on the point . He would either determine to act on the advice of the committee or not, and he was quite right in doing so . But the point I want to make is this: that in running a business concern you must have promptness and the matter must be finalised at once, without dilly-dallying. When a matter is sent to the Minister ,we come a fortnight later and find the Minister, we come a fortnight later and the Minister says so and so. A fortnight is lost. If the minister had sat at the table with us , and thrashed the matter out , we might have persuaded him , or he might have persuaded us. That is an important point in a concern like this, that matters should not be allowed to drift, but should be finalised at once. Apart from that the Minister did not take the trouble to acquaint himself with the details of the scheme, and that was a very serious drawback. There would be a meeting with the shippers or the millers, and the Minister would be making statements all the time on which we would have to put him right. It was very disappointing to us for the Minister to be making mistakes before the shippers. The Minister thought fit to appoint a manager, and moved the staff into an expensive suite of offices in the A. M. P Buildings. Both these matters I was strongly opposed to, on the ground of cost In the first instance we tried to keep down the expenses, for we knew how poor the farmers were, they wanted every bit they could get out of a bag of wheat, and we tried to keep down the costs. When you get the balance sheet eventually, you will probably find that the administrative costs were the lowest of any in the Commonwealth. I opposed the appointment of the manager and also the expensive suite offices. What I also objected to was that these alterations were made without our being consulted. I an not saying this from the point of view of standing on my dignity, but the appointment of the manager was made and announced in the Press before we officially knew anything at all about it. It looked very much as if we had failed, and that was the opinion which seemed to get about. At the first meeting at which the Minister attended I took him to task on the subject and I said it was a miserable thing to do. I told him that he had led the people to believe that we had failed without having been game to say so straight out. I challenged him to show one detail in which the committee had failed. He said we had not failed, but I replied that he had made statements to the effect that things were wrong , and he answered that it was not committee he had alluded to. I told him I thought the staff had done well and he said that the staff had not got out certain certificates. I proved to him, however, that he was wrong, The appointment was totally unjustified, and I was also much opposed to the alteration of the offices. The committee were stultified in many things I came from Kellerberrin at great inconvenience to sit for two or three hours at the meeting. My time was valuable and so was that of the gentlemen .I have named. It was to our advantage to have a typist at these meetings so as to save time, and I considered it was a paltry action to remove the typist. The Minister insisted that the minutes of the meeting should be written in longhand and sighed by the Chairman .That was waste of time. When that kind of thing went on ,it was not possible to expect the best work to be done. There was generally a feeling of distance. We attended one meeting and on the Chairman asking the manager for the agenda paper, the manager said there was none. The Chairman asked what the business was and the reply was, "We have no business" It was an insult to ask us to attend meetings and find that no preparation had been made to put business before us. The Chairman said to me " I have brought you down for nothing." I replied that I had an agenda paper of my own and it took us an hour and a half to get through this business. At this time the millers' accounts got worse and worse and we asked the Minister what we were to do. He replied, "Carry out the agreement. "I asked how it was possible to do that if the Minister did not back us up,and I pointed out that the Minister had allowed one miller a credit of £15,000 against our advice. and in the face of that he asked us to carry out the agreement. The Minister replied that he had not allowed that credit, but I pointed out that the statements would show that he had. Another objection I took was that the millers were allowed a credit for