Wheat Duties.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19610, 4 May 1929, Page 14

Wheat Duties.

The farmers' organisations of Canterbury are acting wisely in calling a conference to resist any intention there may be anywhere to remove the protection on wheat and flour. On Thursday night they were strongly supported by the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce, which has appointed delegates to the conference, but their aim ought to be to secure the support of all public and private organisations of every kind which are concerned with the prosperity of Canterbury. For it is not merely rumour that North Island organisations are moving to have the protection that the wheat-grower now enjoys taken

away from him. Even the Prime Minister has said that the duties are too high, that farmers are getting too much for their wheat, and householders paying too much for their bread; and as we pointed out at the time, the subsequent comments on this pronouncement by other members of the Government —especially by Mr Forbes and Mr de la Perrelle, who belong to the South Island and ought to know something about the problems of wheatgrowers—were not very encouraging. The "dear loaf" is such a handy slogan for anti-agrarians, and has been so freely used, that its absurdity is not always "realised even by farmers themselves. When the facts are faced squarely it can be seen that the farmer would * have to get many times the amount of protection given to him now before it could make any serious difference to the average household's cost of living. As matters stand each household pays at most a few shillings a year for the security of the wheat industry, so that to cry out about the "burden" of protection, abont "dear " loaves " and all the other things that the North Island can see in the duties, is hypocrisy or sheer nonsense. There may be a better method of protecting the" farmer than by a system of sliding duties —we have ourselves suggested a better way of applying the scale; but what the North Island is trying to do is to have the duties removed altogether, and the South Island must resist lhat by every means in its power. It is of course thoroughly blind and selfish of the North Island to attack an industry that is necessary to the whole Dominion as well as to Canterbury, but it is no use expecting anything better than this from the North in a case in which its interest is only indirect. It is a waste of time to try to persuade Auckland that there is any value in anything which is not produced in Auckland. It is better to persuade ourselves that safety lies in united action in our own defence.