Proposed Flour Trade Trust

Bruce Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 3143, 20 February 1900, Page 8

Proposed Flour Trade Trust

It is said that a movement is now afoot in New Zealand in connection with the flour trade that deserves attention. In this colony, as well as in Victoria the ' Australasian ' f tateß that, the industry has fallen into an unprofitable condition. Various attempts to make associations of millers work have not been successful, and a more drastic scheme is in preparationThe .proposal is to form a trust, with a capital contributed pro rata in proportion to the capacity of the mills. The trust is to buy the output of each mill, and to re-sell to customers, the brands remaining as they are now. The profit* earned by the trust are to be appropriated, first in payment of interest on capital, and the surplus as thought advisable. The trust will also have the power to purchase mills outright. While such a trust will probably be a more effective instrument in restoring the trade to a proper basis than an association, there are, it is observed, serious disadvantages from a personal point of view. As the trust can do its own selling, the services of travellers and agents will not be necessary. This view is supported by the experience of trusts newly formed in the United States, where great numbers of travellers were suddenly thrown out of employment last year. Under a trust also the proprietors of the different establishments lose practicially all their independence. Considering these circumstances, a loyally supported association is much te be preferred to what the Americans call an " ironclad trust"