WHEAT CONTROL PLAN

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19454, 13 October 1937, Page 5

WHEAT CONTROL PLAN

COVERING UP LOSSES £150,000 PROM TAXES (Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, this day. "Many people swallowed the story that this was a Government that could increase the price of wheat without increasing the price ol bread," said Mr. S. G. Holland (Nat., Christchurch North) during the discussion on the Taxing Bill in the House of Representatives. He challenged the wisdom of providing £150,000 on the estimates for what was soothingly described aS encouragement for the wheat industry. The fact was that the Government was buying wheat from the farmers in Canterbury at 5s a bushel and selling it to the millers at 4s 9d. In this way it had made a loss of £150,000 in one year. It was attempting to make up its losses by taxation.

■ "We are being taxed to make up the Government's losses," declared Mr. Holland, not to encourage the growing of wheat." This drew a prompt reply from the Minister of Industries and Commerce, the Hon. D. G. Sullivan, who asked whether Mr. Holland would deprive the whea't farmers of Canterbury of a reasonable price for their produce, of adopt the alternative course of making an increase in the price of bread, which would mean taking £300,000 out of the pockets of the people. To pass on aid increase in the price of a 21b. loaf of bread to the public would have resulted in a total increase of £300,000. There had been only one way to handle the problem, and that was by giving the farmer an increased price for his wheat.