The Press SATURDAY, MAY 4, 1946. Wheat Price

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24866, 4 May 1946, Page 6

The Press SATURDAY, MAY 4, 1946. Wheat Price

■ Officials who said in Wellington l this week that “no determination ' “ had yet been made ” of the 1946j 47 wheat price said something curious. The Hon. D. G. Sullivan’s statement at the end of February was either an announcement of 7s Id, tied to an argument which fell between two stools, or it was a waste of words. If the officers quoted meant, however, that the decision has since been reconsidered, but has not yet been changed, it is easier to understand them, and very easy to agree that reconsideration was necessary. The price of wheat, they said, was “under more or less “ constant study ”. Such studious application is admirable, though study should by now have taught the men of the desk that the men of the drill are helped little and less as the announcement of price changes is delayed. If it is Government policy to buy more land into wheat by raising the price, whether by flat rate or conditionally, the policy must fail, totally or in part, unless it is announced early. An announcement in May is worth less than’ in January or February. Nevertheless, Mr Sullivan made a mistake, in February, which it would still be useful to correct. His mistake was in arguing for 7s Id both as a fair price, considering the “long-run efficiency” of New Zealand farming, and as a price which. “ given average climatic conditions " for autumn sowing, would substantially raise the wheat acreage and help to “grow food for a stricken “ world ”, (The official estimate of 250,000 acres, a little later, laughed at, the Minister’s hollow conviction.)' In the light of facts already plain when the Minister spoke, there was only one principle to be followed, one aim to pursue: to produce dll the wheat possible, without swinging away from other essential food production. New Zealand cannot provide a wheat surplus but can avoid drawing on the surpluses of other countries and so help to maximise the quantities available for the deficiency areas. The facts were plain when Mr Sullivan spoke. The problem was already defined as one of famine, not hardship; of long-term scarcity, not short-run; of continental range, not local. Since then, the facts have become plainer still. Doubts and uncertainties have been dispelled. The United States has acted with transforming energy; Britain has added sacrifice to sacrifice. And the Australian'Government, as Mr Sullivan has himself shown, has pointedly assured this country that all the Wheat he releases, from his purchase last year, can and will be promptly ■ shipped to the hungry ports. The flat price of 7s Id Mr Sullivan announced in February will not, because it cannot, grow the wheat that will release New Zealand’s bought wheat and load the relief ships. It is for the Government to say what price will do it, and how it is to be paid; but the Government’s decision will have to be made soon, and wisely. Niggling will save neither New Zealand's credit nor those lives for which, before the world, New Zealand is responsible.