WHEAT PRICES.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XLVII, Issue 13049, 11 January 1917, Page 5

WHEAT PRICES.

SETTLEMENT THIS WEEK. FURTHER CONFERENCE WITH GROWERS. (Special to the Oamaru Mail.) Wellington, January 9. The Board of Trade has completed an elaborate report on the wheat question, which is to lie submitted to the Government to-day, and' will come up for consideration at a full Cabinet meeting this week. Then the Hon. W. D. S. Mac Donald, Minister of Agriculture, will be able to call the wheat-growers together * to .submit the Government's final offer. ' The Board's report, he informs your correspondent, deals exhaustively with the whole situation, including difficulties due to the war, the cost of cropping, threshing, milling, baking, andi retailing, as well as the merchant s part of the business. "I feel sure," remarked the Hon. W. D. S. Mac Donald, "that the report, when it comes before the conference, will receive every consideration, for it is well thought out,' and has. taken a. great deal of work to compile." Housewives who are loudest in, their complaints regarding the high cost of everyday requirements will be surprised, I understand, when the Board of Trade makes public the heavy extent to which the cost of house-to-house canvassing for orders, and the delivery of goods operates in raising the cost of commodities to the consumer. Here is a chance for permanent economy .by householders who are able to spare time to do their own shopping for meat, groceries, and bread. The demand for absolutely fresh bread arrears to be the chief factor in the high delivery charges, as few customers will be. satisfied' Tinless the. loaf is-fresh out of the oveii. Whether it would be ail economy to the community as a. whole to force hundreds of people to make separate journeys for their goods is doubtful,, but real economy would' result if by some form or co-operative delivery effort, tradesmen were able to avoid the waste which •» obvious when dozens of . delivery carts visit a street in a morning, to convey goods which could have been easily accommodated in one or two of the vehicles