The Cost of Bread

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 105, 27 January 1933, Page 11

The Cost of Bread

Sir, —Some of your correspondents must have read the new wheat regulations were superficially, or perhaps they have taken their views ready-made from ill-informed newspaper criticism. One such correspondent, “Wellingtonian,” in a recent issue of “The Dominion,” stated that the Government’s action over the pool “is only adding to the cost of living.” The price of wheat and flour under the pool will not be a fraction more than it was last year, So how is the cost of living being added to? And the pool and its administration will not cost that old war-horse, so frequently trotted out —the taxpayer—one penny. The contributors to the. pool—the wheat-growers—will pay that.' When “Wellingtonian” talks about the I price of bread driving people to some other food, surely he loses his sense of balance., To-day good bread can be bought ir tha! shops for 2}<L a lb., yet beef in the shops; easts 9d. to 11<L a lb., yet beef is selling, in the stock markets at 3sd. a lb. (or 18/9, for 1001b.j. Here is something for cor-; respondents of the “Wellingtonian” type, to tilt at. Bread to-day is the cheapest of ail human foods. It will continue to be. so' in New Zealand, whilst the maximum price; of wheat is fixed by the sliding scale of duties. Your correspondent mentions that some years ago wheat was exported at a “heavy loss” (the quantity was less than quarter of a' million bushels), and the “poultryman and other users of fowl wheat were mulcted by much higher prices in New Zealand.” As a matter of fact, fowl feed did not advance one iota as a result of the export. But memory is 1 short In some years New Zealand growers supplied internal needs at below world panty. No doubt if a world wheat shortage developed through drought (quite a possibility), and world parity went above our fixed maximum of 4/7, we would not hear a “cheep” from the north. But you cannot have your bread buttered both sides.—l am, etc., A. L. GORDON. Christchurch, January 25.