STATE BAKERIES.

Colonist, Volume LVII, Issue 13728, 17 March 1915, Page 8

STATE BAKERIES.

'From the Wellington "Post.")

An unmistakable declaration by the Prime Minister is this- "1/; any further increase takes place in the price of bread, the Government, will establish bakeries in the four principal centres.'' That is ':fair and square and perpendicular," as "Biglow" said. Mr Massey has explained that the -Government's purpose with such an enterprise would be to lessen the difficulties for numliers of families which, he states, aro ''already feeling the pinch." How far has that'"pinch" been put upon them by ex cessive prices of wheat and flour? The ;sovenpenny loaf has fop red to tenpence, aad threatens to touch a shilling, according to tho words of Ohristchurch bakers. This would lx> ■■» rise of over 70 per cenb. for one necessary artk-le alone. Up and down New Zealand the consumers have a fixed i.oliei' that the war has been made nn excuse for much imposition, ..ind a feeling of resentment is rrrowinp; amain. N> amount of vap;ue denial of exploitation and no fer-i-id protestation of innocence will shiftthat opinion which is firmly held by tilio Kreat majority of the public. If there is -a warrant for the present prices, the people would be pleased to see it. They have a complexity of statements about war risks and snch-like, but they are not convinced that the additional expenses to which the purveyors are put can justify the present charges for a- number of necessaries. Tho mass of the public believes that the opportunity for "pinching" is too easy, and the people would bo glad to see "something doing." The wasteful management of more than one State enterprise in the past has caused numbers of Now Zeaianders to lose confidence in that word, but the wastefulness may be attributed largely to the old political control. In the case under review tho Government would be closely watched by every section of the community, and the very existence of the Ministry might depend on good management of the bakeries. Apparently the idea is to work the ovens for only the period of the war (if bread ha.s another increase), but if they proved successful, on sound lines of business, they might stay; the people would be 120 more willing to have the State baking fires quenched than to have the State coal mines closed.