HOUSEWIVES ASK FOR FARTHINGS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 157, 5 July 1937, Page 10

HOUSEWIVES ASK FOR FARTHINGS.

Controversy Owing to Price of Bread.

(By C.C.)

The Australian Housewives' Progressive Association want farthings included in the currency of the Commonwealth. They maintain that as farthings are still used in England, they could with advantage be minted in Australia. "Farthing increases in this country always react to the good of the producer and the middleman, but never to the good of the consumer," the Federal secretary of the association said. The particular item that had roused the housewives to anger was an increase in the price of bread. They resent being unable to buy their breed at the exact price if that price happens to terminate in a farthing. "Why should we pay a halfpenny instead?" they demand, and with reason. The association has for some time been at variance with bakers over the steady rise in cost. Urging housewives to bake their own bread as a protest, they have followed up the advice by instruction in the art of bread-making. »Naturally the bakers have not been slow to expostulate, pointing out among other things that the main reason a woman in her own home can make a loaf more cheaply is that she does not need to pay wages to assistants. On the other hand, some bakers frankly admit that they could sell at a lower cost than that prevailing, but that they dare not do so for fear of being boycotted by the millers. And so the controversy—not a new one by any means—stands at present: bread still rising in price, the housewives still protesting, and threatening to petition the Federal Government to give them farthings for their protection!