WHEAT CONTROL ENDED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19232, 22 January 1926, Page 8

WHEAT CONTROL ENDED.

There is a gratifying note of finality in the announcement by the Minister of Agriculture that the proposed extension of "wheat control will not be made, and . that the market will be allowed to take its own course behind the protection of the existing tariff. The Government's decision may be misrepresented as merely another concession to that clamourous section of farmers who have annually demanded the continuation of guaranteed prices but now consider the prospects of open trading to be more favourable. The. circumstances, however, fully justify the view that the approval of the wheatgrowers is merely dental, and that the termination of State interference is a direct expression of the Government's policy. Et is, indeed, highly significant that the portfolio of Agriculture changed hands the day before the Ashburton conference and that the first public action of the new Minister has been to proclaim the restoration of open trading. Whatever justification there may have been for control in n time of emergency—and farmers should remember that its original purpose was to keep prices down, not to subsidise wheatgrowing—i there is no reason for its perpetuation in normal conditions. The New Zealand experience has proved that instead of stimulating production and making the country independent of foreign wheat, the State's management has been accompanied by a reduction of the harvests to lower records than ever before, while consumers have generally had to pay higher prices than would have ruled had they been regulated by the world's market conditions. Since control has neither made bread cheap nor increased the production of wheat, its abandonment should be universally approved. There is the further consideration that the pampering of wheatgrowing has been utterly inconsistent with national policy, for farmers cultivating wheat lands have no legitimate claim for preferential treatment at the expense of the rest of the community, the various sections of which neither ask nor receive special bounties from the State, though they are just as important in the national economy. With production and marketing restored to open trading conditions, the wheat growing industry is placed in its true perspective and all who recognise the necessity of following sound principles in national affairs as well as in industry and commerce will welcome and commend the action of the Government.