RATIONING OF WHEAT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22065, 22 September 1933, Page 5

RATIONING OF WHEAT

POSITION OF “FREE” MILLS BOARD’S METHODS CRITICISED. (Special to Dailx Times.) AUCKLAND, September 21. Exception to several statements contained in the message from Wellington regarding the wheat situation is taken by Mr H. Worrall, of Christchurch, who represents three southern flour mills. It is definitely incorrect; he says, to suggest that the wheat now being imported is being obtained for the purpose of mixing with New Zealand flour. His mills have just landed 1000 sacks from Canada and have another 1000 on the water and are at present negotiating for further quantities. “We do not need Canadian wheat for blending,” ho said, “as our local flour is quite, good enough for that, but we need it because we cannot get through the Wheat Purchase Board locally the wheat we require.” Mr Worrall, whose mills are “ free,” also denied that all mills are treated on the same basis by the Wheat Purchase Board and quoted In proof of this that some mills are working 24 hours a day, while others are working only eight. Some allocations, he said, are niade on the basis of previous trade, and some on the basis of capacity. The primary object of the Wheat Purchase Board, he .said, was to ensure that the farmer received a fair price for his wheat, but the board had taken to itself power to ration wheat to the mills and and so it controlled their output. The board was automatically holding trade back and he considered there should be no rationing of any sort. The contention of the “free” mills all along had been that the fixation of wheat prices to ensure the farmer a reasonable price was quite right, but they challenged the right of the board to say that a mill should not make more than a certain quantity of flour. They did not see that the farmer derived any benefit from the rationing of supplies to the mills. Mr Worrall said since March last about 1,000,000 bushels of wheat had been exported from New Zealand to China and England. Mills with an established trade were - being protected against the competition of “free” mills: Although they had applied for it, there was no representation of the new “free” mills among the nine members of the Wheat Purchasing Board.