duction and in their buying and in their selling emancipated themselves from the drudgery that they were in. There is the actual monetary advantage that I have been getting. Doubtless I shall get greater advantage if I, as a party interested in that wheat, watch that wheat. Though the Government have backed that wheat for me, or guaranteed me, I do not expect that guarantee of the Federal and State Governments will represent the full value of the wheat. The guarantee, and the advanced payment of 3s., are not sufficient inducement for me to have no further regard for my wheat, whether it is in an agent's hands or in my own hands. I still feel an interest, and right throughout the State the farmer has that feeling. It is bred in his very veins not to see wheat split about or wasted. Moreover, he has an interest in it. The wheat is better in his hands, I submit, than in the interests of people who, as I told you, are so negligent and careless as to whether the sites are ready or are not ready when the wheat was ready to put on the sites. The wheat was the primary consideration, and the sites were necessary for the wheat; but that matter was completely held up because of some little technicality.

4936. I suppose you are aware that in 1916-17 the agents had to provide their own sites?-Yes; but the Railway Department were to allot the sites. It was that allotment that caused the delay.

4937. Then you are condemning the Railway Department because the sites were not provided?-Were not allotted.

4938. Are you sure that the companies made application for sites to the Railway Department in sufficient time?-Undoubtedly; and it was promised that the delivering of wheat could take place by the 1st January.

4939. By Hon. J. F. ALLEN; There were no sites allotted to any of the acquiring agents at that time?-At. Doodlakine, no, I think not. They were all in the same box at that place. The farmer had a legitimate ground for complaint. There was the land, and I believe dunnage was there. But we had to stand back for some official to come up and tell us where to put our wheat. Meantime our horses were eating their heads off, and men were being paid, and our wheat was out in the field liable to be burnt if anybody dropped a match. The farmers are the most fit and proper persons to handle the wheat right to the ship. I contend we are the most likely to act efficiently.

4940. When you speak of "we," do you mean the farmers arrangement. As farmers we are in it, because every farmer, whether he is a shareholder or not, gets this dividend.

4941. You speak of the Westralian farmers, Ltd., as we?—Yes. We speak as farmers because we are so interwoven, as it were. The farmer naturally has that feeling that he has still an interested in that wheat, and at every station and every siding he is there as one interested in the arrangements, and to put the parent company out of action would strangle the farmers' whole organisation. Suppose the Government decided that they would handle the wheat through the Wheat Board and utilise the co-operatives, that might be in their mind, and if it were it be a distinct disadvantage to the principle of the Westralian Farmers, Ltd., as the parent company of the co-operatives handling it for this reason: The Government supervision over a big thing is not calculated to be so efficient as with those interested.

4942. By the CHAIRMAN: The complaints we have got are that the Government supervision is too severe?-Since we in Western Australia have handled our wheat on the cheapest basis of any of the States doubles a little cheese-paring has taken place, notwithstanding that there is the advantage of the farmer handling his own stuff, neither the Wheat Board nor the Government need have any consideration as to what is paid for the handling. If too much is paid it goes in dividends; whether they are or shareholders or not they get it back in any profit that is made. It is a farmers' concern; it is purely co-operative. If too little is paid they lose themselves but gain it the small charge. It is a kind of heads I win tails you lose. If it is given to another firm at a cut price, it may be regarded as not sound practice. That firm will actually lose the money, and the farmers would gain. There must be some motive for another company to undercut. What would that motive be? Suppose that it is at a price by they get a profit, who gets it? The firm, because the farmer gets none. In the other case the farmer receives the whole of it. There is a professed desire by Parliament and everybody else to keep the man on the land. Men meet together for self-help and co-operation, and there must be assistance to make him self-reliant as much as possible. The farmer feels that he is entitled to this consideration. Again, say the Wheat Board were to try the idea of the government apart from the Westralian farmers, Ltd., of running the pool in this state or controlling the handling of the wheat in the State with the assistance of the co-operatives. I daresay if Mr . Keys is retained as manager there would be a certain amount of difference on the part of the co-operatives, but suppose he pays them and satisfies them and gets them to handle the wheat?

4943. By Mr . HARRISON: You mean the co-operatives as sub-agent?-For the Government. That would be throwing the fat in fire, and you would readily recognise that they count something on this organisation.

4944. By the CHAIRMAN: I hope you are not threatening a strike?-I have not suggested it yet, but I suppose even among farmers certain treatment could induce strikes, but I say that if it is placed in the hands of Mr. Keys to run the co-ops. I am not unmindful of the fact that he may think it unreasonable or impracticable to continue the Pool. And if he were to run it with the co-operatives, to try next year how he would get on, would he have a fair control of the thing when the impossible came and it went back to the old system? We farmers do not wish to ruin our own concern, and we have been credited throughout the Commonwealth and New Zealand as being the most forward and most up to date of any. True, we have experience of others and of other parts of the world in co-operation, and we want to continue. But we feel very ticklish and very jealous of any interests coming in to interfere with us. I have been farming for 14 years, and I have never had one pound that I have got out of farming that I could go out on a sunny morning like this on to my farm and say it was my own. If I had gone into any other secondary business I would have been an independent man as Australian independence goes, but I have been keeping at this business: there is the enthusiasm for the land, and it is about the most honourable thing a man can do to produce from the soil, but it is the most unprofitable as conditions have been. I want the Commission to have the greatest sympathy with the man who produces wealth from the soil.

4945. By Hon. J. F. ALLEN: When you say you could not honestly put your hand on a pound and call it your own, you had the assets. Your asset has increased during that period?-I am glad you asked that, because I intended to say it. I do not know what would be discovered by an inspection into the Agricultural Bank clients and the Industries Assistance Board clients. There are quite a number that cannot survive, and if pioneer farming in this State-and pioneer farming is one of the most heart-breaking jobs that man can undertake, it is kind of second or third generation business, and we are going through that pioneering stage in its larger phase than any other State at the present time. I have been clearing the land, putting up fencing, and not making a penny for those years, and I do not know, because of the unprofitableness of the industry and consequent depreciation in values in Western Australia, whether I am going to get money back; it is yet an unsolved problem. I cannot calculate the asset until the industry is put on a sound basis. Money has been put into Agricultural Bank properties that never will come back.

4946. But your farm is in a better position than when you took it up as virgin land?-I hope it is. It would be a hopeless proposition otherwise, but I do not think anyone would select it to-day, because of the drop in the sentiment for land. Take our Lands Department, what trade is it doing in agricultural lands? How can the Agricultural Bank get off their properties that have been abandoned? I have certainly put improvements in, and I have got them