STATE BAKERIES?

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVI, Issue 16805, 15 March 1915, Page 6

STATE BAKERIES?

The declaration made by the Prime Minister that if there is any further increase in the price of bread - he will start State bakeries will stimulate public curiosity as to what the poor man will say or do next. It is more than seven months since Mr Massey commenced to deal with the problem of inflated prices. Prices, however, have beaten him all along the line, and the people in the meantime have had to spend, through enhanced charges for foodstuffs and other necessaries, probably .enough to pay the whole of the current expenses incurred by New Zealand in connection with the war, possibly more. Since tho war began wheat has gone up in price by about 78 per cent, flour 75 per cent and bread 43 per cent. These extra charges have been put upon the public in defiance of all the efforts that the Government is supposed to have been making to keep the charges down. The rises have been contemporaneous with the sittings of a Food Prices -Commission, tho issue of Government proclamations (and their revocation), the importation and sale of wheat and flour by the State. We are afraid the explanation ie to be found in the impression held all along by wheat-growers and dealers that tho Government was not in earnest. The course of events lias certainly justified that impression. Everybody knows that the regulations ipad’e by the Govemor-in-Council by virtue of special legislation were never effective. When transactions in wheat at more than a stated figure were made illegal, the sacks containing the wheat suddenly assumed extraordinary value, and all except the strictly honest persons or firms affected proceeded as merrily as if the Regulation of Trade and Commerce Bill had been rejected instead’ of passed by Parliament. Tliat the Government had little sympathy for its own scheme to regulate prices was really admitted by the Prime Minister when the last of the elections was decided, for he then revoked a proclamation fixing the price of wheat, on the ground that to prevent the producer securing market value was confiscation. And now Mr Massey s amazing conception of the Government’s duties has undergone another transformation, and lie talks of establishing State bakeries! After allowing the wheat-grower to enjoy profits beyond’ his highest anticipation, and tho miller to share in the advantage, the Government intends to fall upon their victim, ’ the baker, and enter a trade that appears already to be under control by competition. Possibly the baker is the least influential of the parties ooncerned in the rising price of bread. He is, however, quit© demonstrably the smallest offender. 'lndeed, we do not know that be is an offender at all, since’ his nominal responsibility . for the tenpenny loaf is relatively only half that of the grower and - miller- AVe like to see farmers prosper at all times. It has been the pleasure of this newspaper to support measures for the liberalisation of the land - laws which have profited and multiplied the agriculturist considerably. But we cannot sympathise with the making of fortunes out of the people’s chief food supply simply, because the country is at war, and no reasonable person can separate in his mind the war and the high prices of whoat, flour and bread' The miller in turn appears to have raised the price of flour ns if the purchase of the raw material was the only item of expenditure. The centesimal increase in the price of bread, on tho other hand, is equal to little more than half the advance in flour. if Mr Massey carries out his

latest avowed intention, he will be tackling the problem from the wrong end.