Wheat Duties.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 19986, 22 July 1930, Page 10

Wheat Duties.

There is one paper at least in the North Island that is able to see the wheat question in its true proportions. The Manawatu Evening Standard of Friday last, in a long article on wheat production, warned its readers that "to allow the wheat-grower to go out " of business rather than keep him in " at the present cost to the consumer " might be falling out of the frying-pan into the tire. There is the fact, to. begin with, that Australia is not always blessed with a bounteous harvest, and the Standard asks what the position of the North Island poultrymen and pigraisers would be if the Australian crop failed. But even if New Zealand could get as much wheat from Australia as it wanted at a price it could pay, " that " would mean something over two millions sterling a year going out of " New Zealand," and the Standard wonders what products from New Zealand would be given in exchange. We are practically shut out of their market by their tariff barrier, especially our potatoes and our butter, and "every " importer knows to his sorrow" that when the balance of imports is badly against us our imports cost more. It therefore concludes that " New Zealanders would be well advised to " adopt as a national policy the principle that the Dominion should be " self-contained so far as practicable in " the matter of its chief food supplies, " of which wheat is the most important "of all." This is so sound and wise that it is not necessary to carry the argument any further; but if it were necessary to add anything, it would be sufficient to remind the North Island that the price of bread is higher in Canada and America, wliich have dollar wheat, than it is in New Zealand where wheat costs a dollar and a half.