WHEAT DUTIES

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 147, 18 March 1931, Page 10

WHEAT DUTIES

Maintenance Wanted CONFERENCE PROPOSALS By Telegraph—Press Association. Christchurch, March 17. The following telegram was sent to the Prime Minister to-day: “This representative conference of farmers, millers, bakers, stock agents, manufacturers, merchants and members of the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce, having received with satisfaction the Prime Minister’s promise that the sliding scale of duties on wheat and flour will be continued until the end of the present year, is investigating the possibilities of a reduction in the price of bread through economies in costs which have been proposed by the Government, and a special committee has been set up to report later. Meantime, the conference urges upon the Government the necessity for maintaining the present scale of duties for future harvests after the present year for the following reasons: — (1) The Dominion should be selfsupporting in its wheat requirements. (2) The protection which is given to wheatgrowers by every country in the world. . .... (3) The necessity lor maintaining the standard of real wages and the returns in New Zealand as against those prevailing in other countries such as Russia, which are selling cheap wheat in some eases produced by forced labour and depressing the world's markets; (4) The large employment which is given by the wheat industry and its allied trades at a reasonable cost to the Dominion. (5) The reasonable price at. which bread can be .sold in the Dominion in comparison with other manufactured articles and in ratio to the rates of wages.