tion by the Government of the mills, does it not lead one to think that the Chamber of Commerce must be convinced there is something radically wrong as far as our millers are concerned?—But Mr. Shallard, the president, made it clear that the Chamber had not specifically considered that particular point. The Chamber supported Mr. McGibbon and the representatives of the Farmers and Settlers' Association in their general request; but when that suggestion, that the State should take over the mills, was made by Mr. McGibbon, Mr. Shallard repudiated it.

1600. By Hon. J. F. ALLEN: Was that repudiation made at the meeting itself, or subsequently?—At the meeting, I understand. After having been twitted by several commercial men, they wrote a special letter to the Premier dissociating themselves from such an idea. I have not been able to get hold of those papers though.

1601. By the CHAIRMAN: That is a statement which has been made outside since?—No. A copy of Mr. King's letter to the Premier was published in the Press.

1602. Here is an extract from your report of the 30th May, 1918: "Deputation to Minister for Industries. During Mr. Baxter's absence a deputation from the Chamber of Commerce and the Farmers and Settlers' Association waited upon the Hon. R. T. Robinson and urged alterations of the Scheme, most of which had previously been declined by the Minister." That would be Mr. Baxter, I suppose?—Yes.

1603. The report continues: "Namely, board's functions to be executive instead of advisory; wheat certificates to be made negotiable; that there should be an independent audit of the Scheme; and that the Government should compulsorily acquire the flour mills. As a result Cabinet declined the executive and made no objection to the negotiability of the wheat certificates, and refused the audit scheme and the acquisition of the mills"?—That is so. As far as I can ascertain, that was the result of the deputation.

1604. You have had a lot of trouble with the millers right through regarding their accounts?—Yes; when I say that, I am speaking generally; I am taking the millers as a body. Of course there are some very decent millers, who have always paid up.

1605. But some of the millers have refused almost from the start to pay up?—Yes. We say that they have not paid.

1606. Is it possible to get over that difficulty by making the millers pay for their wheat to the Board as they get it before gristing, in the same manner as they had to pay the farmer previously?—Yes, but there are many difficulties in the way of that.

1607. Can you tell us any?—It depends on the policy of the Scheme as to how much wheat they want to be gristed during the year by the millers; that is to say, whether the mills shall be kept running full time for gristing wheat, for exporting the wheat as flour and not as grain. Then another point is the time of delivery of wheat at the mills. We do not want as a Scheme to have to hold the wheat in the country until the millers can take delivery of it, and they will not take delivery until they have sufficient funds to pay for it under your suggested arrangement, and that means we have to store and protect wheat somewhere. Your idea is that the wheat shall not go into the mills until paid for. Our idea is that the wheat should go into the mills and be stored practically free by the millers and cared for by them and paid for as gristed.

1608. By Hon. R. G. ARDAGH: In other words it means it will cost the Scheme extra money to hold the wheat if the suggestion of the chairman is adopted?—Yes.

1609. By Hon. J. F. ALLEN: At present the millers are not paying for any wheat?—Only holding back what they are entitled to at the finalising of the 1915-16 Pool.

1610. By the CHAIRMAN: They are purely gristing agents now?—Yes. A different arrangement.

1611. There is no chance of the mills to-day holding back any more money because they have to be paid by the Scheme?—Yes, and if they owe any money they have to pay interest at five per cent.

1612. They have had money belonging to the Pool as high as £60,000?—I believe at one particular time it was up to £85,000.

1613. They were using that money without paying interest to the Pool?—Yes.

1614. Consequently they were being well paid for the storage of the wheat?—I would have to work that out. It would appear so at the first flush but I would have to go into the figures.

1615. Mr. Hammond complained that he had a difficult job when there was a change of Ministry taking place in 1916, in getting information to know anything about it?—I do not think Mr. Hammond or any member of the Committee had any difficulty in getting information they asked for. I think what was in Mr. Hammond's mind was this: when they were under a previous Minister certain information was automatically sent to them by me as secretary, particularly in regard to the conferences in Melbourne, by the Australian Wheat Board, that our Minister from time to time attended. Under the new Minister and with a general manager, it was considered not necessary that a lot of this information which the Minister might consider as confidential from a State point of view should be sent to the members of the Board. The Minister might have though it did not really interest them. The net result was that such information used not to be sent during Mr. Mitchell's regime with Mr. Sibbald.

1616. And members of the executive, or, say, the Advisory Board were not aware after the change of Minister what was taking place as far as the Australian Wheat Board was concerned?—That did not apply for six months or so after the change of Minister, because immediately after Mr. Mitchell became Minister there was no general manager, but a secretary, and as that secretary I continued to send the information as previously. But when a general manager was appointed, I do not know that it was immediately on his appointment, that would depend when the conferences were held, but while he was general manager the information was not available to me as secretary; therefore I could not send it on to the members of the Board. I think you will find there were several reports on the file.

1617. The reports of the meetings of the conferences were sent to the Minister?—They were the Minister's private confidential property if he regarded them as such.

1618. You have seen a lot of those reports. Have you seen anything in them which months afterwards would be regarded as confidential?—That is a very big question. I should say, yes there are some items in the reports that should be regarded as confidential, but I cannot for the moment tell you which. I could by just running through them. What do you mean by "confidential"; from a State point of view or a Scheme point of view?

1619. From a State point of view. Most of the work is dealing with the shipping and selling of wheat. To put it in Senator Russell's way, we are here to sell wheat and any information that possibly may be let out that is detrimental to selling and shipping, may be confidential, but outside of that nothing is of a confidential nature?—No, except as affecting Governments. For instance, we recently had a discussion at the Board meeting as to what information should be regarded as confidential and what should not. Obviously, the farmers' representatives on the board desired to make as much information available as possible so as to remove so many misconceptions that cropped up from time to time as to the operations of the Scheme. It was decided to leave it to me to mark as confidential any reports and papers that I considered would, if made public, be likely to interfere with any action we had in hand or in contemplation. I think that same attitude might be made to apply to the verbatim reports in connection with Ministers' conference held in Melbourne. If the information is not likely to interfere with any contemplated action, it should be made public. That is my own personal opinion, but I think you will find, on looking at one of the recent reports of the Australian Wheat Board, they decided the question of publishing information as affecting the Australian Wheat Board, should be left to the discretion of Senator Russell, Mr. Graham, I think, and Mr. Pitt, the general manager of the Australian Scheme, and as far as Ministers are concerned, they are, I understand, loyally abiding by that decision.