"OUR DAILY BREAD"

Evening Post, Volume XCVII, Issue 56, 8 March 1919, Page 5

"OUR DAILY BREAD"

A SHILLING LOAF

RISE v_Jl PRICE PRESSED FOR.

As an inducement to grow more and still more wheat, farmers have had successive rises in the price per bushel assured to them by the Government. The higher the price of wheat tho more the miller had to pay for it for gristing, so he, too, has been placated. As the baker wants to know where. he comes in, a ;representative of The Post asked Mr. A. F. Tonks, president of the Master Bakers' Association, for some more light on the subject. Mr. Tonks 6aid an advance in the price of bread was now imperative. It should be brought up t ols per 41b loaf delivered at the door. "The reasons for thiß advance," Mr. Tonks ' went on, "are manifold. This week an advance is payable in carters' wages equivalent to 15s per ton of flour used. True, flour was recently reduced 10s per ton, but on this one item alolie the master baker is now 5s per ton more to the bad than he was a week ago. The Board of Trade.'is; well apprised of the position. It was waited on by my association, and the Minister (Hou. W. D. S. Macdonald) was present then. The deputation was sympathetically received, and the board realised the position that the bakers had come to in the matter of increased costs of production. _ I believe the board, taking the facts into account, recommended an increase^ id per 21b loaf all round. This is equivalent, of course, to-^d per pound of bread. Here are invoices showing the rises we have had to meet in materials and production (apart from carters' wages). You can compare them for yourself."

The comparisons are as follow, taken from invoices submitted : —

Mr. Tonks continued : "The Board of Trade has compared these invoices. In September last, realising that the bakers must have some advance, the board gazetted an increase, of id per two-pound loaf on the wholesale trade, viz., to shops, hotels, and restaurants; but 'after a month's trial this was found to bo unsatisfactory, and the old price was resumed, with practically a promise from the board that an all-round increase of id per two-pound loaf would be sanctioned in February, 1919. . "We bakers realise that as the farmers had had an increase in the price of their wheat (and it is a bountiful harvest, too), and as the millers are being subsidised by the Government, so that they shall not run at a loss, we also should not bo loft to carry on at,a loss. We have carried on. for two years, in some cases, at a large loss spread over the year. This can be proved by^bal-ance-sheets. . "

'Everything- else has advancedbutter, meat, fruit, milk, clothing, boots, even the prices of admission to picture and other" theatres, all without one word of, protest from the public. Why, then,-should it be different when the bakers ask for a rise of per pound of bread ? The whole thing is anomalous, for in. cost of production hread stands second from'heading the list.. I go further i If the Cabinet does not grant .the relief asked, for by the. bakers and re- ; com_ended by the Board of Trade, of a rise of id on. the two-pound loaf, then it will-be-a question as to. whether the larger, bakeries will not be compelled to close down."

„ L 1917.. 1919. Perton , £ s. d. £ s. d. Salt ...:: „... 6 5 0 16 0 • 0 Rice flour 14 10 0' 2110 0 Potatoes ;. 5 15 0 17 0 0 Bran 6 7 6 7 17, 6 Chaff 7 0 0- 12 17 6