uary we found that there were no trucks, and we had to temporarily stack the wheat. Instead of putting it on this weevilly site the local representative found an empty shed and hired it for 30s. a week, and stacked 6,000 bags of wheat in it until be could truck. In my opinion he showed great foresight in making use of this shed. On the 4th January Mr. Keys hastened to object to our doing this, and told us we had no right to do it and that there was a stacking site on the other side of the grain shed. We pointed out immediately that this stacking site would hold a small proportion and that we had filled it. After Mr. Keys had written a most caustic letter on the subject, in which he said that our only object was to increase the costs, while his was to reduce them, with the consent of the inspectors that Beverley grain shed is still filled with wheat, because they recognise that there is no other place in which to put it.

3194. Was that the old co-operative shed ?—Yes. The Scheme wrote to us to say that Inspector Sabine reported that at the Wickepin stack new wheat was being put into the stack although trucks were available and stating that that process should not continue. I referred the letter to our agent who replied asking that specific instances might be given of where such a thing has been done and he denied that it had been done at Wickepin. What I want to contend is that while Mr. Hall has left his files on your table, those files are departmental. It is possible that you will come across in the files the letter which they wrote to us, but I doubt whether you will come across the letter which we wrote in reply. My unfortunate position is that were I to do my job thoroughly before this Commission, I would have to deal with all the letters in the file, which I have before me, because I am frightened about what appears on the files you have and what has been omitted from them. I know that most material letters are absolutely off the file. There is one matter that I desire to refer to because I think this will be the main plank of the evidence ; it is one of the things which I think was the cause of so much wheat being outside the depots. There is a price for shifting wheat into trucks direct and there is another price for putting it into a temporary stack and then when trucks are available putting it into those trucks. One price is double the other, but I contend that the price for the second service should be more than double. A farmer's wagon comes in, backs up to a truck and the wheat is easily shifted into the truck, but if you have to stack the wheat and then perhaps a week or a month later lift it and carry it into the truck again, it is more than a doubly arduous task. We have never received any complaints from the co-op. societies about the price which we have been paying for direct loading from farmers' wagons to trucks, but one and all have complained about the price we agreed with the Government should be paid for the double handling. That bears out that the Doodlakine co-op. company were badly used because we insisted on them stacking the whole of their wheat. They got double price, but they got a very unprofitable contract. We arranged with the Railway Department about a certain method of trucking and the department circularised the station-masters and we selected certain sites where we considered there would be good stacking ground. Owing to the limited number of trucks, we could not send trucks to all sidings, so we concentrated on the sidings that were unattended and had bad stacking ground. If a rake of trucks came along there to the siding, farmers' wagons were unloaded into those trucks, but if there were no farmers' wagons the trucks were filled from the stacks on the ground and the train was shifted away. The Railway Department admitted that they were trucking wheat quicker than before. After we had been working that way for some time Mr. Keys put his foot down and said that one of his inspectors had complained that our agents were deliberately taking wheat off farmers' wagons and putting it on the ground rather than loading it into trucks in order that when the next lot of trucks came they could lift the wheat off the ground and earn double money. Our agents are thus accused of conspiring to do something which is unprofitable. He gave us definite instructions that we were not to load one bag of wheat into a truck unless it was from a farmer's wagon. We pointed out to him that this would be a suicidal policy because we would have at sidings empty trucks, wheat temporarily stacked on the ground and men sitting watching it. His reply was that he quite admitted that but he did not see why the farmers should be asked to pay the wages of the lumpers in order to keep them employed. All that wheat on the ground had to be lifted by double handling and all he accused us of was that we were making more out of that. We could have quickly stopped it if they could have proved one case, but we were taken definitely off a system because of the fear that one or two agents had conspired to do something which all admitted was unprofitable.

3195. By Mr. HARRISON : In regard to that extra price, is it not a fact that all the receiving agents put on the farmers' docket how the wheat was disposed of ?—Yes.

3196. So there would have to be collusion between the farmer and the agent to gain that double price ?—Yes.

3197. By the CHAIRMAN : But was it not the object of Mr. Keys to have the truck ready for the farmer ?—Yes, presumably it was, but one might wait for hours and not see a farmer's wagon, and then perhaps they would pour in. We had to put the balance of the wheat on the ground, and after that we not allowed to touch it.

3198. It would mean that at a remote siding all the wheat would have to be put on the ground ?—It did operate that way in many instances.

3199. Did you have to keep the trucks over the time allowed without demurrage ?—I do not know, because I know not what that time is.

3200. By Mr. HARRISON : Would the wheat have been lifted at an earlier date if that regulation had not been in force ?—Unquestionably. That regulation was practically the cause of the strike at the depot, because under it the men were not kept in constant employment.

3201. Then that is why the farmers would not come to their assistance ? —No, because the farmers did not know the conditions. The men were not earning what they were supposed to be earning for they were not kept in regular employment. Had we been allowed to go trucking we would have kept those men better employed and probably there would been no strike.

3202. By Hon. J. F. ALLEN : What remuneration do the sub-agents get ? — One halfpenny into the truck, and one penny for putting in and taking out of the stack.

3203. There was no deduction for the Westralian Farmers, Ltd.? —No, in no case did we interfere with the remuneration of the sub-agent.

3204. By the CHAIRMAN : In some cases you were paying 12s. 6d. per hundred to the sub-agent who in turn was paying 10s. 6d. per hundred ? —That was in connection with old stacks of the 1916-17 season, not last year's agreement, and that 2s. per hundred was well earned. If the Government had contracted with those men it would have cost them more than 2s. Besides we have cases on record of contractors on breaking into a stack finding the job too much for then and throwing it up, leaving the local co-operative society to go in and finish the job. We have also on record cases of some of our best local co-operative societies refusing to take on the work at that price. We pleaded with Mr. Keys to let the old conditions stand, but he proved adamant. I am convinced that he was adamant because he knew that it was a serious crippler to our local co-operative societies, for they had men sitting idle on account of it.

3205. By Mr. HARRISON: It is possible that after a rain storm farmers would not be able to deliver their wheat to the siding and so the trucks would be standing ?—Yes, standing for many days. I have here a letter from our Carnamah agent in which he declares that the regulation did not meet with favour, and that if they were not allowed to truck wheat from temporary stacks it would mean chaos to the agents who had men to pay. This very agent says that he cannot continue to receive wheat under the regulation, and he adds this footnote, "This wheat is stacked close to the weevily wheat and must therefore soon be affected." In many cases the temporary stacks were close to last year's weevily stacks.

3206. By the CHAIRMAN : What was the previous system under the agents ?—We were all allowed a free hand to rail what we could to Fremantle and stack and roof at country sidings. It was at our discretion. In previous years the merchants and ourselves had all the wheat under the protection of roofs before the time that the Government even suggested this season that we should roof the wheat.