THE WHEAT MARKET

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2524, 10 June 1909, Page 5

THE WHEAT MARKET

( THE SENSATIONAL REPORT.

ANOTHER CONTRADICTION.

(Per Press Association.)

CHRISTCHURCH, June 9. Writing to the “Press” on the Bubject of the wheat market, Mr. H. Wood, chairman of the Flourmillers’ Association, states: —If there was any foundation for the report of Australian buyers’ ’intentions, it is only reasonable to suppose .• tliat they would first turn their attention to those districts largely interested in wheat producing, but it is “going from home to hear news” with a vengeance when we find that they know all about it in a district which grows just a small fraction over one per cent of the wheat produced in the Dominion, whilst nothing is known of it in a district which grows 72| per cent of the wheat crop. It is, perhaps, scarcely worth while wasting time to point out how the “information” is being made to suit. First of all, we are told that two Australians arc coming over to buy, then told they have been buying for two months past. I am quite willing that the truth of the position should be judged by the statement of an Auckland miller that, more than half of the two million bushels surplus had been shipped to London. Mr. Wood then quotes from the “New Zealand Trade Review” figures showing that from Ist February to 31st May, 'the total shipments of wheat were 156,463 sacks, say 521,453 bushels. He has verified these figures by the returns of vessels actually cleared, such returns having been obtained from the various Customs offices. AN AUCKLAND COMMENT. . AUCKLAND, June 9. With reference to the Christchurch telegram stating that unless the millers can be united again a “cutting war” will be instituted by the southerners, a local miller stated to-day that the New Zealand Flourmillers’ Association cannot cut prices any more in Auckland then they have been doing for the past eight years. Auckland had long been the Association’s dumping ground for its surplus stocks owing to the mills here refusing to join the combine, but there was one thing certain, and that was that if the Association dissolved the “cutting” would extend to its own tied ports, and it would then be a case of the “survival of the fittest” amongst those in the Association. The Auckland mills were, however, quite prepared to hold their own. In reference to the Dunedin wire as to flour being able to be landed in Auckland at £ll 0s 6d on the wharf, it was stated that the Flourmillers’ Association’s recent price for flour in Canterbury and North Otago, where the wheat is grown at the millers’ doors, was more than what they were delivering it for in Auckland, which was proof of the Association’s object to crush those without the combine. This fact was recently exposed by certain astute persons in Auckland buying the Association’s wheat at the low figure they asked for it here, and then re-shipping the grain to Wellington •and Napier, both strongholds of the Association, and underselling them there. Local bakers, interviewed. Btate that they had never heard of flour being landed on the Auckland wharf at £ll 0s 6d per ton' as stated in the Dunedin wire. Concerning the per cent discount alleged to be allowed the bakers here, all of those approached strenuously denied ever having been allowed th e same.