WHEAT.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 51, Issue 131, 16 March 1931, Page 4

WHEAT.

Sir, —As all your readers—did they but realise it—are vitally interested in wheat growing, your leader of March 10 is most valuable, but the matter concerns, as you state, a larger question—that of the cost of living. The cost of bread to the average family in New Zealand is about three or four per cent, of the income. Let us assume that the wholesale price of bread is 33 per cent, higher in New Zealand than it is in England, and if this is so, as wages are from 30 to 40 per cent, higher in New Zealand than they are in England, the parity is the sain?.

The wheat grower is only very partially responsible for the price of bread. For the wheat in one pound of bread he gets scarcely one penny. And out of cms penny he pays wages to the plouguinan, blacksmith, implement maker, saddler, horse breeder, binder twine maksr, threshing mill worker, hauler, railwayman and fertiliser worker. Inter aha, supposing we lost the industry and ail these people and many others wave put out of work, would not New Zealand as a whole be thanktul to pay the farmer this price for his wheat in, order to regain such a natural large employment-giving industry? It is incomparably l>etter than any scheme of unemployment work we could devise. ••

The farmer has to prepare for wheatgrowing 12 months or more ahead. He is anxious to know what price he will obtain for his next harvest. Is it not reasonable for him to be assured that if he will then accept, say, 4s 9d. a bushel'for good milling wheat—-which is a 15 per cent, cut on tlie price he has been getting—he may go on with his year's labour and expense in the hops that,Jill the other trades and interests which deal with his wheat until it becomes bread will also give way a little so that bread may come down in price? It costs less than 2d to make the flour into a 41 b loaf and deliver.it in England. Expert bakers in New. Zealand say that the same services cost up to 6sd. The farmer is not responsible in any way for these high conversion costs. His wool is bringing him not a quarter of \fhat it sold at in-1924-25. His lambs are selling at less than half the price. His butter is similarly down. His wheat at 4s 9d a bushel would be a farthing less than the 1910 price, when bread was sold at Bid the *4lb loaf.

Is it not time that all the others who are reaping a 'benefit from these low prices which are bringing him to poverty should make a move and also giye something? The Continental countries have shut out cheap wheat and flour altogether, or put a heavy tariff on its entrance. South Africa has done the same, America pays import duties on a 2001 b barrel of flour of 8s in order to help its wheat industry. England is getting cheap wheat, much of it produced in Russia under forced labour, and enjoys cheap bread, but she enjoys cheap goods of all kinds to fit her low wages. If we are to have protected industries, and sheltered industries in New Zealand and the comparatively high wages which they provide, there is no industry which needs, which justifies, and which deserves protection more than the wheat industry. We have no industry that pays the Dominion better in labour and the promotion of direct and indirect employment; no industry which indirectly pays the bread consumer so well for what it costs him. But-the protection of this industry must not be used as a cloak and a shield for high costs iu the other industries which take the wheat from the grower and make it into bread, and if the farmer gives his share toward the general welfare they also should give their's in due proportion. With your influential aid I am hopeful we may get all sections of the community to agree with this.

W. MACHIN. Christchurch, March 14, 1931.