THE HIGH PRICE OF BREAD.

Bruce Herald, Volume XXXX, Issue 98, 20 December 1904, Page 5

THE HIGH PRICE OF BREAD.

[to The Editor.] Sir, — Towards the close of the session before last, it will be remembered, the attention of Parliament was drawn to a serious injury inflictedupo 1 the public, and especially the wageeaVners, through the operations of a combination of flour millers, commonly known as the Millers' Trust, who, it is alleged, ananged to restrict the output of the various .mills, and, in collusion with the master bakers, agreed to fix and keep up an arbitrary and exhorbitant price for bread. The present is an opportune time for again directing public attention to the question. The evil effect? of. such a combine are apparent in the present inflated price of bread, and it is to this aspect of the question that I wish to specially direct public attention. Regarding the operations of this combine, I make the following definite statements :— (a) That it has unnaturally and artificially forced up the price of flour ; (k) that under its restrictive provisions millers are making an altogether unreasonably high profit., and (c) that in collusion with the millers, the bakers, with a few honorable exceptions, are making immense profits ; the consequence being that the price of bread is higher to-day, in relation to the price of wheat, than it has been for the last twenty years. Let us look more closely into the matter, and see more exactly the amount of profit which the miller makes under the present prices. It takes 47 bushels of wheat to make a ton of flour ; 47 bushels at 3s 6d (to-day's prices) comes to 4s 6d, the value of the byeproducts is reckoned as £1 ss, and deducting this from £S 4s 6d we get £6 19s 6d as the net price of the raw material for a ton of flour. The selling price of flour is £10, and the net selling price, after deducting 2]/z per cent, discount for cash is £9 15s 3d. The difference between £9 15s 3d and £6 19s 6d is £2 15s gd, and this represents the millers' gross profits ; £1 per tpn will cover all the cost of manufacture, and the balance of 15s 9d is the millers' net profit on every ton of flour. On what costs him £6 19s 6d he makes a net profit of £1 15s 9d. The baker fares even better, as I shall clearly show. Let us take a sack of flour for the purposes of our calculations. The baker pays £10 for a ton, or ten sacks, so that one sack costs £I—deducting1 — deducting discount for cash the price to the baker is 19s 6d per sack. Out of every sack of flour the baker gets on the average 68 loaves, and 68 loaves at 7d, the present price, brings in £l 19s Bd, leaving a gross profit of £l os 2d on every sack of flour. Practical men who are in the trade set down the working expenses at 50 per cent of this sum, so that we reach this position '• that on every sack of flour for which he pays 19s 6d the baker makes a net profit of ios id. The secretary of the Working Men's Co-op-erative Society at Christchurch, in his evidence before a Parliamentary Committee, stated that it paid them to sell bread at 5% when flour was ;£io per ton, yef. the bakers here are charging 7d, with flour at There have been times in the past when bakers have not received a paying price for their bread, but now they are getting too much. I am on absolutely safe ground when I affirm that they could afford to sell at 6d and yet make a thoroughly satisfactory and reasonable profit. The public are in a position to judge for themselves as to the seriousness of this evil, and I sincerely trust that they will take prompt steps to rectify the same. — I am, etc., Anti-Trust.