26 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Jury, 1901. 
we shall be brought down irrespective of our resources. If the people are doing 
well, then the railways will do well. If you kill the farmers, you kill the goose 
that lays the golden ege, and you kill the country. 
Mr. J. Winsown (Freestone Creek): As for what Mr. Miscamble has said, 
I may say that we have never asked that our wheat be sent to Roma at a less 
rate than our flour. Mr. Miscamble wants Warwick wheat to be sent to Roma 
to be manufactured there into flour. We have the finest land on the face of 
the earth for wheat, but this year I have only 55 acres of land under the bread 
cereal. We are now being compelled to go in for hay and chaff, and are 
thereby encroaching upon the people at the foot of the Range. If we were 
allowed to grow wheat we would make our railways pay. I really think the 
Government does not know the position we are in. That poor unfortunate 
Pittsworth mill is 27 miles from Toowoomba. When it has to send a ton of 
flour into Toowoomba it costs them for railway freight 11s. 4d., although a ton 
of wheat goes in for 2s. 4d. I was at the first Agricultural Conference at 
Gatton, and before i came there looked upon you Northern men as enemies. 
After being cooped up together for four days, however, we got to know each 
other. And now, since I have been to Bundaberg, I may say that my eyes have 
been opened a good deal concerning this kanaka business. 
Mr. J. Danten (Pittsworth): The reason I read my paper was because I 
thought an injustice had been put upon our farmers. Those who have read the 
petition from the Warwick Farmers’ Milling Company, presented to the Acting 
Premier, will find that it bears this on its face: ‘‘ We do not want the wheat to 
go from here; we would rather have a higher rate put upon our wheat. Take: 
our flour cheap so that the wheat can go through our mill.’ I have looked 
through the petition and cannot see anything else init. I take this from an 
outside view. I shall not quote any figures. My idea is that as soon as a 
farmer has produced his wheat and has placed that on the market, that as a. 
producer he has done with that article. He is finished with it. In the carrying 
of it from the mill, however, he is in a different position. If he becomes a 
miller, then he wants it carried away at a cheaper rate. All the farmers are: 
asking me: Are we to protest against the rnte on flour? I am quite willing that 
it be carried at a cheap rate, but am not willing that the wheat be carried at a 
higher rate. In short, I am in favour of the wheat being carried at a low rate,. 
and the flour too, for that matter. 
The Hon. D. H. Datrympte: The speakers have complained partly of the 
cost of removing flour, but they have shown to me, at any rate, that the whole 
question is an exceedingly difficult one, because there is a conflict of opinion 
between those gentlemen who have addressed you. There seems a conflict of 
interests—the interest of the miller, the interest of the farmer, the interest of 
the producer, and the interest of the consumer. ‘Then there is the conflict of 
interests arising from local considerations. The views of the Warwick, the 
Pittsworth, the Toowoomba, and the Roma representatives on these matters 
seem to differ. ‘That, I say, makes the question a very difficult one. For my 
part, I believe that the Commissioner does his best to deal fairly with all parties. 
and with the State as a whole. It may be desirable, and no doubt is, that the 
railway rates should be very low, but we should remember, whether the railways. 
are kept largely by the rates which are charged upon them or whether they are 
not kept in that way, they have got to be kept in some way. That is to say, 
the railway expenses have to be met, and you know that the railway revenue has. 
fallen off £20,000 in consequence of the deficiency in carriage, and we know 
tho railways do not pay the interest on the cost of their construction to the 
extent of £500,000 per annum. Therefore the question is a very difficult one, 
and 1 am sure if any delegate found himself in the position of endeavouring to 
reconcile all these interests—the interest of the people who use them and the 
interest of the people who have to pay taxes—he would find himself in as difficult 
a position as the one now occupied by Mr. Leahy. We do not yet know how 
the volume of exchange will be affected when federation comes into 
