THE WHEAT QUESTION

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 118, 12 February 1926, Page 8

THE WHEAT QUESTION

SUPPORT FOR MR. CORSON’S PROPOSALS

That the Labour Party will support the proposal k>f Mr. Corson (president of the Flourmillers’ Association) to set up an independent commission to inquire into ways and means of placing the wheat and milling industries on a permanent basis to ensure the production of the Dominion’s own requirements at legitimate prices to both producers and consumers, is indicated in a statement made by the secretary of the National Executive of the New Zealand Labour Partv (Mr. W. Nash) yesterday. In the course of the statement Mr. Nash said that the wheat grower should be guaranteed a price that will compensate him for his labour in good or bad seasons Ihe cost of milling under modern up-to-date conditions should be ascertained and arrangements completed to ensure supplies of the necessary flour, bran, pollard, etc. The cost of bread manufacture should be ascertained, and the price of bread fixed accordingly. There might be reasons against the fixing of prices; but if a full supply of wheat were to be grown within the Dominion then the grower was entitled to some guarantee. If a price were guaranteed for wheat, then prices should be fixed throughout. Price-fixing by agreement could not logically stop, until the wheat, flour, bran, pollard, and bread reached the poultry farmer, dairy farmer, ami the housewife.