Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1934. WHEAT QUOTAS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 54, Issue 95, 1 February 1934, Page 4

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1934. WHEAT QUOTAS.

Whatever may be the merit of the quota system as applied to the general body of imports into Britain, the position as regards wheat has apparently fallen far short of the hopes th'at were held in some quarters regarding its value in assisting to remove some of the disabilities under which the farmer in the Homeland has laboured in recent years. "The effect of the wheat legislation," says "The Economist," "has been to induce registered growers to raise and sell more wheat at any price in order to secure the deficiency payments; domestic wheat prices-'have shown no tendency to increase in sympathy with foreign wheat prices, which have sharply risen; but the difference in the price of bread has been due to the incidence of increasing levies upon the millers to make good for an extended domestic supply the difference between home market prices for wheat and the standard price of 10s per cwt." One year's operation of the Wheat Act goes to show that, although only about 37.5 per cent, of the British wheat crop is milled for flour, although British wheat makes fewer loaves per sack and is too damp by itself for bread, and although the world has a superfluity of the wheats which their consumers need, British farmers have been regimented into greatly expanding, at the increasing expense of all bread consumers, a supply of wheat which has only a limited demand. Commenting on this "The Economist" says: "Thus, not only have we an example of 'economic planning' at its worst —the decreeing by the State of economic loss for the majority in favour of the minority—but we have also the accentuation of difficulties for the world's wheat exporters who might be importers from us, the exacerbation of the home millers' demand for prohibitions on fiour imports, an increasing 'spread' between the price of bread and of wheat, and the complete disorganisation of domestic agriculture by interference with its own economic development. The price of wh f at > which economic -tendencies had brought below the general average both of the prices of farm products and of all wholesale prices long before the war, is now raised by Governmental ukase to around 131 per cent, of its 1911-13 price, as contrasted with the prices of oats and barley, which stand at 85 per cent., and the prices of all farm products, which are between 100 and 107 per cent of their 1911-13 level. If these preliminaries in the agricultural sphere of national economy are an earnest of further 'planning,' the economist may well wonder how a-highly industrialised nation is to maintain its standards of living, while the consumer may soon awake to find necessities become luxuries overnight."