Wheat and Flour Duty

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6628, 15 August 1931, Page 10

Wheat and Flour Duty

SOUTHERN VIEWPOINT. SYSTEM “UNASSAILABLE" Referring to recent criticism in tlie “Herald" of the sliding scale of wheat and flour duties, Mr. W. Macliin, of Christchurch, Iras forwarded a letter ‘' setting out what we in the South consider expresses a more correct and equitable aspect of the case." “The costs of the New Zoaland wheatgrower fluctuate very little, but the prices of wheat in the world’s market fluctuate widely,” he writes. “Consequently our wheatgrower needs a sliding scale of duties to protect him up to the average cost, which New Zealand conditions impose on him, of growing his wheat when outside prices are low, and in return for this the consumer of bread is assured by the same duties that prices of wheat, 'flour and bread will not rise when world’s prices are high, for then the wheatgrower gets no higher price because the duty deereaes. “A fixed duty would seldom meet the case. One year it would be too high and bread prices would rise. Another, it would be too low and wheat prices would go down, because a fixed duty would not prevent a flood of cheap imported wheat. If the principle is accepted that wheat, flour and bread prices within New Zealand should be maintained in reasonable ratio to the prices of other goods and services and the general average level of costs and prices, then the case for the sliding scale of duties is unassailable. And in other matters this principle has been accepted. Look at wages and labour costs! New Zealand has protected them until to-day the Dominion is one of the most favoured countries in the world, and the answer to the cry that there is cheap wheat in other countries is that there is also cheap labour in those countries and cheaper commodities than we have here. “It is true that the wool, meat and butter producers are forced to accept prices that are about world’s parity, but that is due to their huge export surpluses; and is the wheatgrower produces such surpluses for export in the future he will suffer in the same way. Until he does so, however, there are quite adequate reasons in equity for the protection he receives. “Auckland does not grow wheat, but it gets much privilege in other ways," Mr. Machin adds, “ and it seems rather ungracious in always forgetting its own advantages, to which the whole Dominion contributes, while it endeavours to injure the wheat industry, which, after all, is given scarcely sufficient assistance to enable it to keep level with the prevailing conditions in New Zealand."