imposed on account of quality. Agent to be responsible for quality (barley, smut, oats, drake) and the aggregate certificate weight, but will not accept liability beyond the amount of their profits. Any deductions made by agents from certificates are to be credited against any deductions made by the Pool for quality and weight. Marked weights to be accepted, or failing agreement to this, weights to be taken as per mutual equitable arrangement. The Scheme to provide or pay cost of all stacking sites, the question of supplying dunnage to be arranged. As far as sub-agents' remuneration is concerned, it could be assumed that all the wheat received would be away from stations and sidings by the end of April, and the agent would not have to provide for cover or protection of stack, either as regards the supply of material, or placing of same on or around stacks. The board to pay the hire of any covering material from agents at a farthing per bushel up to the 31st October, 1918. Each agent to ship wheat in proportion to the quantity received by him on terms to be arranged:

When we got this draft agreement which we were asked to sign, we found that, instead of the sampling at depots being a running bulk sample, it was to be an individual bag sample. That is one of the biggest questions of the lot. If that had been forced on us the whole of our season's operations would have resulted in a dead loss. Let me explain. A man brings in 100 bags of wheat. If the f.a.q. standard has been fixed at 60½lbs., when his wheat is sampled and weighed he may have 95 bags going 62 lbs. and five bags going 59 lbs. A running bulk sample of that 100 bags would show it to be well above f.a.q., but if you put in on an individual bag sample, he would only get his f.a.q. on 95 bags, and would be docked 2d. per bushel on the five bags below f.a.q. standard.

3156. By Hon. J. F. ALLEN: In the one case you weigh the bags in bulk and in the other you weigh them separately?—No; you have a bushel measure, and if it weighs 60½ lbs. it is f.a.q.

3157. But with a running bulk sample you take one bushel only from the entire consignment?—Yes. You may ask, why is the farmer so foolish as to bring in 95 bags above the standard and five bags below it? If you ask Mr. Sutton he will probably tell you that it is a most iniquitous thing and that the farmer ought to be taught to grade his wheat. Now here is a letter written by Mr. Keys as general manager of the Wheat Marketing Scheme on Messrs. Liddell & Thompson of Kununoppin. Those people had brought in hundreds of bags that went above the f.a.q. and, on cleaning up, brought in 32 bags on which they were docked. Let me tell you that the whole of the wheat, good and bad, was placed in the depot, and when it is sold by the Scheme it will be sold on ordinary conditions, which will be bulk sample of the depot, and so the wheat will go in as f.a.q. This is the letter received by Messrs. Liddell & Thompson—

I have to acknowledge receipt of your letters of the 13th May and 1st inst. with reference to dockage for inferiority. I note your remarks with regard to the larger portion of the wheat tendered by you being over f.a.q. standard. Whilst you may be perfectly correct in this respect, yet, at the same time, portion of the wheat you delivered was admittedly of inferior quality to the standard set, and on this portion you were rightly docked. Had you mixed this inferior wheat with the good and prime, either in bulk or by working off odd bags of inferior with each load, you would probably have escaped dockage. I regret that the Minister has already decided that in all such cases as yours, dockage cannot be remitted.

That is signed by Mr. Keys and it is the most iniquitous document I have ever seen written by a departmental officer. It is an immoral and wrong thing, and for a man to put his name to a letter like that is unpardonable. First of all this proposed agreement demanded that we should be judged on individual bag samples, after the letter of the 23rd August, stating that we should be judged on a running bulk sample. The next thing is that the Chamber of Commerce f.a.q. was to be the standard when ascertained. The Minister fixed the f.a.q. standard at half at lb. per bushel above what the Chamber of Commerce fixed later.

3158. By the CHAIRMAN: We are told the dockage was fixed at the request of the Westralian Farmers, Ltd.?—That statement has been made throughout the country and it is the meanest lie I know. We had no say in the fixing of the dockage. We did not even suggest the dockage rates. The Scheme fixed the rates of dockage. Knowing that our old competitors would be judging us at depots, it was vital to us to know the bases upon which we were docked. I will come to that later. The letter of the 23rd August states that the Scheme is to provide all stacking sites. That is perfectly clear, yet Mr. Keys says that the acquiring agent was to pay for all stacking sites. It struck me that this, coming in February, was an extraordinary document, because the Government had, in fact, already found the stacking site.

3159-60. I find on looking through the files the manager of the Wheat Scheme, Mr. Sibbald, and the railway officers went out for the purpose of picking out the sites, and later on I find that the responsibility is thrown on the Westralian Farmers for providing the sites?—If you produce a letter showing that the responsibility is thrown on the Westralian Farmers, I will give you the best sample of Government files you ever had.

3161. I am not clear who is responsible?—There is a letter, dated 23rd August, saying they, the Scheme, were responsible and that they have provided stacking sites, and the agreement says the Government provides the stacking sites.

3162. But you have the question of roofing and no arrangement is made?—That is a different matter.

3163. You have also arrangements for protection. That might have been for the sites as well?—I suppose this has come about because the original ideas could not be carried out. I will tell you why Mr. Kevs attempted to put on us the responsibility, because he found that the Government inspectors had instructed our people when they found the stacking sites were put up so close to the old sites, that they were affected with weevil, and therefore the attempt was made to place the responsibility on our shoulders. I want to refer particularly to the matter of the stacking sites, and the position is this: I can produce a letter in which the Scheme wrote the Railway Department admitting definitely that they and not the Westralian Farmers were responsible for the prevision of stacking sites. I cannot put my hand on the letter just now, but if necessary I will go to the Railway Department and get the original. I say that the Scheme did write to the Railway Commissioner telling him that the arrangements were that they were to provide stacking sites and the agreement was contradictory to the letter of 23rd August. In the original document which Mr. Keys sent us to sign it says—that the wheat would be cleared form the stacks by the end of April. I want to show you that that was a big factor in our low quotation. If we could have relied on quick trucking and the wheat being cleaned up by the end of April, it would be cheaper for us than keeping men about probably unemployed until after that date. They not only say that all the wheat will be cleared away from sidings by the end of April, and that it was not necessary to provide cover, but this is not done. They say the wheat will all be away and that you have only to make temporary stacks because the wheat will be shifted to the depots. At that time the Government estimated that the coming harvest would be 10½ million bushels to 11 million bushels, and they still write to say they will shift it by the end of April. I think on the 30th April they had not shifted one-third of the lower estimate which they gave, into the depot. Then there was the question of the limitation of our liability to the amount of profit. That was put into the August letter, but not carried out in the agreement. Then as to the suggestion in the document that we were to receive the shipping of the wheat, a most important proposition to us, because there was profit to be earned on that, but that condition does not appear in the letter. In our letter in answer we state that the quotation is on the assumption that the conditions are still standing. None of these things are shown in the proposed agreement. Picture the difference between the letter of the 23rd August, in which we were carrying out the contract and doing a lot of work and the document which Mr. Keys wrote to us.

3164. What reason did he give?—He did not give any reason, but it is in keeping with the rest of his