"CRUEL LOSS."

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 19, 23 January 1929, Page 8

"CRUEL LOSS."

IMPORTATION OF FLOUR.

HEAVY COST LAST TEAR.

IMMEDIATE REMEDY WANTED.

(By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.)

CHRISTCHURCH, this day.

Mr. J. W. Collins, secretary to the Department of Industries and Commerce, when speaking at a dinner given by the Master Bakers' Association last evening, said that during the year which ended on December 31 last, New Zealand imported 761,000 bushels of wheat and 0400 tons of flour. While New Zealand farmers had grown sufficient for all needs, there was the astounding fact that all that wheat and flour was imported.

"Do you realise its value?" Mr. Collins asked. "Do you realise that for the 761,000 bushels of wheat we imported we paid £230,000? Do you realise that to have that flour manufactured for us meant a loss to the milling industry here of £130,000? It's a cruel loss, when we have the raw material available. I sincerely hope that as the result of the conferences between the Department of Industries and Commerce, the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, and the Health Department, some immediate remedy will be suggested to the bakers and millers that will obviate the necessity for sending a single pound out of the Dominion in future."