WORLD PRICES AND NEW ZEALAND WHEAT.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 August 1930, Page 14

WORLD PRICES AND NEW ZEALAND WHEAT.

At the present time the wheat markets of the world • have presumably touched bottom. The world has grown an over-supply, and prices in many cases have been below the cost of production. This, of course, is a temporary condition that recurs at infrequent intervals. Already there are indications of a recovery, according to recent cables from America. The July, 1930, Bulletin of the National City Bank of New York.states: “Practically all markets Have been so permeated with bearishness that it probably would not take much in the way of a crop scare or improvement in the consumption outlook to bring about some rebound from the low'prices. - It will be' recalled that only a little over a year ago in May, wheat was selling • below a dollar a bushel, and within two months, due to the growing realisation of the crop shortage in Canada, it had risen to.' 1.50 dollars." .

At times of. unusually low prices • the voice of the duty free wheat advocate is heard. Whether he advocates that the whole or only a portion of New Zealand’s wheat crop shall be ”, exposed to unfair competition from overseas, does not affect the unsouhdness of his argument. He is the rashest of speculators willing to snatch an immediate advantage for certain sections of the community, and-to gamble blindly an the' future welfare of the whole community. ; .

World ■ scarcity, which comes as assuredly as a world surplus, strikes, wars and other possible disruptions of a whegt, supply from overseas, are deliberately ignored. ... No .sane New Zealander- with a sense of national ? responsibility, will agree .that'.it is worth while to jettison the Dominion’s Wheat industry, for. the advantage of a temporary reduction in the price of wheat. A purely temporary condition which might possibly give a temporary reduction of a farthing. or two on a loaf of bread and might, temporarily., negligibly reduce one single item only, in the cost of egg production. ‘ ’ . . Tt is utterly foolish to expect that New Zealand could always, year in and year out, .obtain from overseas an adequate supply of wheat at less than present domestic rates. There is also to be considered the large amount of employment provided both directly and indirectly through wheatgrdwing. . Obviously it is to the ultimate , a<L vantage of the whole community that the present stabilisation of the Do--minion’s wheat industry be continued (10)