FLOUR EMBARGO

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 90, 16 April 1923, Page 2

FLOUR EMBARGO

10 188 EDITOR,

Sir,—The embargo on the importation of wheat and fiour, which' we owe to the Massey Government,. merits. more attention than has been given to it. The embargo is an attack on commercial freedom, and there' is no protest from the commercial community. The Chambers of Commerce prefer to deal in stale statistics and optimism of the ostrich brand rather than resent thi*6 attack on commercial freedom.. We have to look to the Labour Party to champion the cause of the people. This embargo, according to the Minister of Agriculture, will mean a-halfpenny per 21b loaf, and, according to Mr. James Mitchell, of'Oamaru, the journalistic champion of the embargo, it will cost the country £400,000, and 5000 persons will benefit. Thus the embargo sets up quite a new principle, for ,it insists that the many should be taxed for the benefit. of the few. The tax means 6s 8d per head . for the population of 1,200,000, to the benefit of 5000. We are assured that without the embargo the wheat-growing industry would soon vanish. The last Year Book (1923), page 358, gives' the area and yield of wheat "for each season from 1868-59 to 1921-22, a period'of 54 years, and for 52 or 53 years it has not been necessary to embargo or control or license to protect the industry, the Customs Tariff being sufficient. ' It is difficult to determine just where the interests of millers and the wheat farmers end and where the interests of the public begin. ■Perhaps the Massey Government considers the people 1 have no interest in the. matter at all. However, the Government cannot prevent the people fancy-| ing there is a nigger somewhere in the woodpij,e The Massey Government seams to think that' the farmer is the only pebble on tlje New Zealand beach, i and they have still to be taught that i there are other pebbles oj quite as much I importance. The people are indebted to those niembers of Parliament who have championed the cause of the people. , -r-I am, etc., ■ ! HOUSEHOLDEK. 13th April.