THE PRICE OF BREAD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20947, 10 August 1931, Page 13

THE PRICE OF BREAD.

J g; rj —it is a striking commentary on I the stato of politics in New _ Zealand ; that, in these times of financial strain and widespread distress, when the un- : employed are numbered by tens of thousands and charitable organisations are distributing food and clothing among tho needy to prevent actual starvation, bread, the most necessary article of food, continues to be bolstered up in price by high protective duties on wheat and flour. Moreover, not only the Government in powei, but Parliament as a whole, appears strangely indifferent about the matter, as though it were of no consequence. A commercial news item in the Herald one day last week stated that wheat was priced at Is 11 d per bushel, on tracks, at Adelaide, the lowest on record. A wireless broadcast statement by a New South Wales Agricultural Department official at Sydney, on fucsday night, particularised the enormous surpluses beyond requirements for home use and export in the various wheat-produc-ing countr.es, and expressed the opinion that there could he no stability in prices so as to make wheat-growing p<i.>, until these surpluses were absorbed. A contributor to last Saturday s Supplement to the Herald, quoting a literary writer of that period, say; 3 that when the Napoleonic wars were just ending "bread was 13 pence a quartern loaf . . . everything was taxed, and wages were low. It is scarcely credible that in a iicipjl)bouring country wheat is so cheap and plentiful as to be almost unsaleable, while, in New Zealand wheat, bread and (lour are as high priced as at the time above referred to. In Waikaio the quartern loaf is 14(1 more than double the price it is selling at in England at present, and about twice what it was selling at in New Zealand 20 years ago, though meat, butter cheese and other foods are obtainable at tho then-ruling prices. Parliament is responsible for this state of affairs. In no other country would the people tolerate it. A reduction of 2d in the price of the 21b. loaf would mean a considerable saving in the cost of living to the average family. It. should not. be unattainable by concerted effort. Kih kih' Frank W. Green.

yj r> —Could any one inform me why it is'that tho Government insists upon nursing the Southern wheat growers and guaranteeing them a fixed price for their wheat, whi'e the dairy and sheep farmers must compete with tho world and accept what they can get? Are the men who grow wheat more deserving than these other farmers, or can the wheat growers pull strings so as to refa n their most unfair position ? With the Government's proposed new taxes, the wages cut and generally reduced buying power of the people, surely tho wheat duties should bo lifted, bringing the price of bread down and giving the poultry men a chance to make a living. The general publ : c of New Zealand is taxed 2d a loaf so that the wheat farmers may have assured and rom f ortnblo incomes Great credit is due to the N"w Zealand and "the Auckland Chamber of CommerdST'for the stand they are taking it] tliis matter. The wheat growers should be notified that any wheat sown this spring does not necessarily carry the Government s guarantee and so avoid their usual cry of "wheat already sown," and get another year's grace. T.M. J