WHEAT DUTIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 240, 10 October 1932, Page 15

WHEAT DUTIES.

RETENTION ADVOCATED. SOUTH ISLAND ARGUMENTS. MINISTER EXPLAINS ATTITUDE. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) TIMARU, Saturday. Arguments for the retention of the wheat duties were placed before the Minister of Agriculture, the Hon. C. E. Macmillan, by a largely-attended meeting of growers and citizens at Timaru to-day. The president of the Chamber of Commerce, Mr. W. T. Ritchie, presided.

Speakers stressed the fact that the wheat industry was a vital and national one and that the cost of wheat represented a very small percentage of the cost of the loaf to the consumer. They also urged on the Minister the fact that a considerable portion of the revenue from wheat, went into other channels and for the employment of labour, and if the industry went out of existence the land would have to be utilised for some other purpose.

Replying, the Minister said he was in complete accord with what the speakers had said. There had been a great deal of false propaganda circulated. He did not think there was a woman in the Auckland province who had not been Gold hundreds of times, through the operations of a certain political party, that if the wheat duties were removed, the price of bread would be cut in half. Referring to a statement that he was reported to have made at Hamilton that he was against the sliding scale, the Minister said his remarks had not been fully conveyed. The word "investigation" had been omitted, as he had said he was in favour of an investigation being made, and the investigation was in the manner the speakers had indicated.

A sufficiently good case had been presented to justify an investigation. The present operation of the sliding scale of duties on wheat was not satisfactory, and he would change it. However, he had been elected to support the eliding scale of duties and he was not going to back out on that. The sliding scale was the Government's baby, but if not properly controlled, the parents would soon be down and out and the child not what it should be.

He took it that there was no proposal on the part of the Government to change the duties, but he suggested that the growers should confer with North Island interests and endeavour to effect a compromise or mutual agreement on similar lines to the fertiliser agreement.