WHEAT TO “FREE” MILLS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21987, 23 June 1933, Page 7

WHEAT TO “FREE” MILLS

TO THE EDITOR. g IB —“It is obvious to any impartial observer” is a phrase which has come from Mr A. L. Stevens’s pen during the course of his lengthy letters. Many impartial observers will read his arguments and many things will be obvious to them: (1) Flour milling is controlled to a greater or less extent by Distributors, • Ltd. (2) The milling wheat of this year s harvest i B controlled by the Wheat Purchase Board. (3) Mr A. L. Steven has recently set up a small flour mill which he desires to run continuously. (4) He wishes to remain outside Distribtors organisation, but at the same time to have all the benefits of that organisation and all the advantages of a ‘free” mill as well, (oj He gives highly patriotic and noble-rea-sons for starting this mill, makes a big noise about the importation of a comparatively small quantity of flour, ana extols the quality of his ffour to an unblushing extent. . ~ Mr Steven’s real reason for starting nis mill is the one and only reason that any of us have for starting any business—the idea that we can make something out ot it. Patriotic motives have not actuated him in this move any more than in any other episodes in his life. Where the pocket is concerned Mr Steven cares mo •more and no less than any of us for the consuming public. He is out to make money out of his flour mill, .and if he gets all the wheat he desires and runs his mills continuously v day ar >fl night he will do well—provided,; of course, he can "get away with it.” >-y _ Mr Steven is indebted to Mr James • Begg for fathering motions through the Farmers’ Union and the Chamber ot Commerce. Is Mr Begg ‘an impartial observer? ’’ He appears to be the partisan as on both bodies he proposed the motion. Among other things, it condemns' the Wheat Purchase Board for “ restricting ” the sale of wheat. inis shows the danger of a little knowledge. If the Wheat Board had, not given an undertaking to all millers in general that wheat would be rationed the board would not have sold at this date more than onethird of what has been disposed ’of to millers to-day. „ . „ If millers in general in a surplus season agree to purchase in the autumn a whole year’s normal requirements ot wheat, is it unreasonable to ask lor a safeguard for their market? The mills in South Otago have already taken delivery of over 18,000 sacks rn fulfilment of an agreement with the Wheat iurchase Board to assist it to the utmost in handling this season’s crop. The impartial observer will here observe there is ahvavs another side to the matter. Mr Begg is of the opinion that the public is being exploited in the price ot flour. Luckily for us floumillers Mr Begg’s opinions are more or less harmless even though he does use two august bodies to propagate them. .^ ow - tf 1 ® matter of price .is the one solitary thing :which Mr Steven has not mentioned, i presume, therefore, that on this point the “impartial observer’ will be satisfied. And Mr Steven will also be satished to work on Distributors’ price and so, according to Mr Begg, exploit the public. All the song about importation is only so*much “hot air.” There are bakers •who will always use imported flour in email quantities, provided the price, is somewhere near the local pxuce. It importations are to cease altogether, the only way to effect this is to reduce the price of wheat to world parity—and so defeat the object aimed at to-day. With regard to quality of flour Mr Steven wisely remarks “it is only further evidence of the utter lack of common sense in the supervision of the milling and distribution of New Zealand wheats. This from a man who has been poultry farming for many years past and has had nothing to do with flour milling durin" those years. What next, I wonder? To cut out all the “hot air’’and get to facts, will Mr Steven publish figures to show how badly he/has been treated? What is the sack per hour capacity (actual, not nominal) of his mill? What allocation has the Wheat Board allowed him, and what hours per day will it permit his mill to mu hn a 285 working day year? ' , , T One of the mills with which I am connected was a “ free ” mill at one tune, and in a few months Mr Stevens will be confronted with the problem which comes to all “free” mills—to join Distributors or have a “ free for all.” —I am, etc., D. S. Mackenzie. Gore, June 21.