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STATE WHEAT POOL.
The Hinister in charge of the State
Wheat Pool (Mr. Ii. K. Maley) announc-
ed that arrangements with the
banks had been completed with regard
to the third dividend on the 1921-22
pool, and that therefore the payment of
6d. per bushel net would be made to
growers to-morrow if they presented
their wheat certificates to their banks
in the ordinary way.
Mr. Maley went on to say: "This divi-
dend means that approximately £300,000
will be immediately available to our
growers, raising thc total amount pay-
able under thc present pool to £2,620,000.
The relatively early payment of this divi-
dend on thc present season's State pool
will, I hope, be some slight compensa-
tion for the continued delay m the
finalisation of the five old Australian
pools. I am being continually asked why
it is that, in view of the Australian
Wheat Board's statement made early in
June 'that each State is tn a position
to make further payments on these pools
if warranted,' such payments cannot be
made in Western Australia now. The
reasons are twofold. Firstly, the limited
information obtainable indicates that tile
amounts likely to be available on each
pool are too small to warrant other than
final payments. Secondl1- this informa-
tion is not sufficient to give any reliable
estimate of what is likely to be the final
dividend on each pool, and the particu-
lars lacking (and for which wc have
been so long waiting) are such as pre-
vent any one pool being finalised before
another. I should perhaps explain that
it is probably true that if the total
amount likely to come our way from
thc five pools as a whole-that is from
1016-17 to 1920-21-were distributed as
a puyment for one co*"Tehensive pool
so:m where in the region of lid. per
bu .sh l-l would be available. As. however.
The growers affected are not identical
in ali the pools, and in these pools where
thc grower happens to be the same he
docs not have identical interests, any
distribution of money realised from
wheat sales must be stringently allocated
to each particular pool. I indicated in
the Press announcement that I made on
June 16 that definite details of realisa-
tions overseas were not yet to hand, and,
in view of certain litigation pending at
home and abroad, these particulars would
probably be delayed some months fur-
ther. The Australian Wheat Board are
finding, in the meantime, that the prac-
tical application of certain pooling prin-
ciples agreed upon is exceedingly diffi-
cult as between individual States and
separate pools. The matter occasioning
the greatest trouble is that pertaining
to the equitable adjustment of interest
A special conference of officers is being
held in Melbourne next week to consider
whether the pooling principles deter-
mined in 1919 may not have to bc varied.
The accountant of .the local scheme leaves
for Melbourne to-night to represent
Western Australian growers* interests.
He has been instructed to exhaust every
aveuue with the object of supplying some
definite, though perhaps necessarily ap-
proximate, idea of the value of Western
Australian wheat certificates for the old
pools, and to indicate, for information of
local growers, some definite date by
which all the pools should be completed,
even though some 'by-and-largc' approxi-
mation may have to be made in the final
adjustments. I admit that this will be
very difficult; but we feel that it is due
to thc grower that everything that is
humanly possible must be done to wind
up these long outstanding pools, no mat-
ter how unavoidable thc delays have
been."
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