BREAD AND FLOUR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16798, 14 March 1918, Page 4

BREAD AND FLOUR.

HIGHER PRICE ADOPTED.

POLLARD AND BRAN ADVANCED. [bt telegram.— press ASSOCIATION'.] CHRISTCHURCH, Wednesday. An agreement has been made between the Minister for Agriculture end the miller:! regarding the prices for flour, pollard, and bran. Flour is to be £15 10s per ton, pollard £7 10s, and bran £5 10s. These prices come into operation 'immediately, and continue until February 1, 1919. Further details will be announced later regarding the prices to be paid for next season's wheat crop. The exact figures have not yet been definitely decided, but farmers can understand they will be increased on this year's prices. The Hon. W. D. S. Mac Donald visits South Canterbury and North Otago during the next few days, and on his return to Wellington will announce definitely the prices for the 1918-1919 wheat crop. The decision of the Government to fix a new scale of prices for flour, pollard, and bran was notified in a telegram received last evening from Mr. W. G. McDonald, wheat controller, by Mr. P. Virtue, manager of the Northern Roller Milling Company. The new . prices are f.o.i). at Christchurcli, Timaru, or Oamaru. Equivalent prices will be charged at other ports. Mr. Virtue stales that freight to Auckland and other charges will represent £1 a ton; the prices in Auckland, therefore, will be: Flour, £16 10s; pollard, £8 10s; bran, £6 10s. It is presumed that •these prices will bo subject to the usual cash discount of 2J per cent. The new rates represent an advance of 10s a ton on flour. 12s 6d on pollard, and £1 17s 6d on bran.

INCREASED PRICE OF THE LOAF. REASONS ADVANCED BY BAKERS. The master-bakers of Auckland decided unanimously yesterday to increase the price of tfhe 21b loaf of bread from 5d to sjd, as from Saturday next. In making this announcement members of the trade stated that the new price would bring Auckland in line with the other large centres, where sjd had been the ruling price for some time. It was explained that all essentials in the mainfacture of bread having advanced in price, the increase was imperative. Bakers had been working on a very small margin for somo time, and the time had come to increase the price of bread or be lonljnt with no profit at all. About 1900, when flour was £6 10s a ton and wages were less than half the present rates, the 21b loaf cost 2£d for cash, or 3d booked. The present price of flour was £15 a ton, but as freight was to be added, Auckland bakers paid £16 Is 6d a ton. Every other essential to the baking trade had increased to a very great extent. For instance, salt, which used to cost £2 15s a ton, now cost £16. and there was an increase of over 200 per cent, in the price of potatoes. Chaff, for horse feed, had also shared the general rise. Another factor was tho difficult position in regard to labour, and the frequent staff changes which war conditions brought about. The last increase in the price tof the loaf was nude in November, 1916, when it wag raised from 4Jd to sd.