The Press Wednesday, April 28, 1926. The Wheat Question.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18677, 28 April 1926, Page 8

The Press Wednesday, April 28, 1926. The Wheat Question.

A correspondent, in a letter which we print on another page, suggests one of various questions which should be put to the flour-millers' representative by the deputation which is to go to Wellington to-night to discuss with the Minister of Agriculture the duty on flour. This deputation was appointed last week by a conference of representatives of the A. and P. Association

and the Chamber of Commerce, which passed a resolution affirming that the duty on flour should be greater thnn the equivalent duty on wheat. In our comment upon this resolution we admitted that the general principle underlying the resolution was sound enough, and that in this particular case it might possibly be allowed. But we added that the millers had by no means persuaded the public or the growers that they cannot make a good profit on 7s wheat with flour at £lB a ton. There are two kinds of millers' arithmetic bearing upon this point—the doleful tale of theoretical costs with which any miller can show that he cannot help losing money, and the far less doleful balance-sheets which show that somehow or other Providence steps in to furnish a profit. We have often mentioned the case of the Atlas Milling Company, which, after paying 10 per cent, for some years, declared p t its last meeting, earlier in the year, a dividend of 15 per cent.; and it produced this result with £lB flour from wheat which, cost over 7s on the

average. The other day Mr Gardner, of Cnst, was proving to us that with 7s wheat his firm would lose £1 Is Id per ton, and as his firm seems to have produced about 2700 tons of flour, the loss would work out at about £2840. Actually it made a profit for the year, as announced at its annual meeting a fortnight ago, of £2503, declared a 10 per cent, dividend, and allotted another 10 per cent, to reserve and carry forward. The difference between the millers' theoretical loss and their actual profit is not the least of the facts which are making the grower realise that-, he has too long left his fortunes to the care of the parties to the system of control. The particular Question asked by the correspondent to whose letter we have referred is one to which the members of the deputation should obtain an answer before they go to Wellington, and the Minister will do well to obtain from the millers very much fuller and franker information than they have hitherto given to anybody. Before they can ask for special consideration, the millers must give some earnest of their intention to treat the wheat-grower fairly.