THE WHEAT DUTIES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21296, 24 September 1932, Page 13

THE WHEAT DUTIES

MARKETING AGENCY'S CASE DEFENCE OF PRESENT POLICY COMPARATIVE BREAD PRICES Interesting comparisons of bread prices in the principal towns of the South Island are contained in a circular which the Wheat Marketing Agency Company, Limited, Christchurch, has issued to members of Parliament on the subject of wheat and flour duties. The company states that in Christchurch the standard price for the 21b. loaf is 4£d, but about 40 or 50 shops in the city and suburbs are selling it as low as 3d. In Timaru the prices are 5d cash over the counter, booked and delivered, with some being sold at the cut rate of 4£d. The position is the same in Oamaru, except that there is a charge of 6d for delivery and booking. In Dunedin the prices are 5d cash, delivered, and £d extra for booking. In Tnvercargill the price is from 5d to 6d delivered and booked, with cut-rate shops selling at 4d. With reference to the pork and bacon industry, the agency claims that the duties, through ensuring the production of bran and pollard in New Zealand, actually assist this industry. New Zealand requires 60,000 or 70,000 tons of bran and pollard annually, of which 60,000 tons arc produced in New Zealand. Australia exports on an average 10,000 tons a year, and in a drought season has none to spare. Even if wheat were available duty freo it would not be used by the pig producer, because much cheaper and better feeds—barley, bran, cracked maize and pollard—are available and are already on the free list.

As far as the poultry industry is concerned, the circular states that a majority of the professional egg men are in the South Island, where they secure their wheat as cheaply as they could import duty free. Those who are in the business for a living (only 150 to 175) feed much less than one bushel of wheat a fowl per annum, and all their other feed is duty free.

All European countries to-day, with the exceptions of Denmark and the Irish Free State, are protecting their wheat-growing industry, and in some cases to a quite marked degree. Even Great Britain, for so long wedded to free trade, has considered it advisable and necessary to protect its wheatgrowers, and a scheme is now in operation whereby the wheatgrower is guaranteed 5s 7£d per bushel. Under the sliding scale of duties here

the grower in New Zealand obtained for his wheat this year 4s 3d to 4s 5d per bushel. He is therefore in not nearly such a fortunate position as the English farmer. In Australia this year a bounty of a bushel is paid to the wheatgrower, and this has already meant the distribution of £3,300,000 to the end of June last.

The 1932 Year Book gives the number of wheatgrowers in the Dominion as 6290, and it is admitted that the wheat and flour industry gives employment to a very large number of other people. The capital invested in the industry was reported in 1929 to be almost £13,000,000.