NO INCREASE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 285, 2 December 1938, Page 11

NO INCREASE.

IN PRICE OF BREAD.

BAKERS' DIFFICULT TIME.

INQUIRY BY DEPARTMENT. To determine whether adjustments in the price of flour will be necessary in order to compensate for the increased costa under which bakers are working, an investigation is at present being carried out in the baking industry by officers of the Department of Industries and Commerce. This fact was learned to-day when inquiries were made in Auckland as to the truth or otherwise of a rumour that the price of bread was on the point of being increased. The rumour was found to have no foundation in fact.

It was stated, indeed, that the definite I policy of the Government, in whose hands the matter lies, is to avoid increases in price, and that bakers have been officially advised recently that there will be no increase.

The present investigation is Paid to be the sequel to a statement that tho Prime Minister, the Kt. Hon. M. J. Savage, made to the industry before the general election. In this statement Mr. Savage said that if through increased wages the return to the baking trade was proved to be insufficient suitable adjustments would, after investigation, be made in the price of flour to compensate for the increased costs.

The Prime Minister made this announcement in reply to a request from the bakers for an assurance that suitable adjustment would not be delayed. The industry next, made application for such adjustment, and the investigation by the Department was instituted without delav.

In the meantime, it was learned today, the baking trade generally is facing difficult conditions, and in some cases it is said that businesses are being run at a loss at the present time. The bakers are therefore anxiously awaiting the result of the investigation. While they wish to be fair to the Government and appreciate the steps it is taking, they point out that the price of bread to-day is Id per 21b loaf lower in the main centres than it wag in 1931, while wage rates are considerably higher. To check price-cutting, the Government fixed priees two years with an increase of M a loaf, but no further adjustments have been made since then.

It was also remarked to-day that flourmillere had been allowed an increase in price to compensate for increased award rates, but it seemed that bakers had been left to "carrv the Their businesses had been affected since 1936 by two increases in bakehouee workers' wages and two increases m drivers' wages, together with the general increase* in costs.