ENGLISH WHEAT

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 100, 2 May 1929, Page 4

ENGLISH WHEAT

NEW ZEALAND PRECEDENT

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, 14th March. home discussion has been taking placo with reference to English wheat, and Lord Ernie and others have suggested that the wheat-growing problem would best be mitigated by a subsidy. Mr. A. R. Flint, of "Derby, who spent a few years in New Zealand, has written to "Ihc Times," pointing out that there is a better remedy, "and one which has been tested by the enterprising Government of Xew Zealand." "The method which they adopted was to agree with farmer and miller on a fixed price for home-grown wheat graded as to qualities. Having agreed on the prices, the procedure adopted in the cinema film trade can then be applied, and each miller be required to purchase a definite quota of the home-produced article. "As in New Zealand, so here, the farmer can be required to make a return shortly before harvest of his crop expectations, and upon this the quota can be determined. Ihis system has the enormous advantages that it riiakes the farmer's return certain, instead of leaving him at the mercy oi market prices and middlemen's profits. It would cost the taxpayer nothing." Another correspondent, "writing to-day, says that such a scheme as that in New Zealand would cost the millers something even if not the taxpayers. 'If the millers agreed to pay the price armers consider remunei\tive, they would be paying 5Ss instead of 44s a quarter, tho difference between the market price of English wheat and the generally accepted remunerative minimum. There seems no r ay,°, ut, o£ the diffiou% that the agricultural baby has not only got to be held hy someone, but nursed."