WILL THE DEAR LOAF GO?

Taranaki Daily News, 5 September 1932, Page 2

WILL THE DEAR LOAF GO?

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—ln your issue Of August 26 you ask. this question in your leading columns, and then proceed to answer it, extracting satisfaction in the process from-the fact that the Minister of Agriculture, Mr, C. E. Macmillan, .is already converted and that his Ministerial duties have evidently “broadened” his outlook. We wish down here that We could think the same. Mr, Macmillan has been down the West Coast on a few mining trips, but I doubt if he has evdr seen a Canterbury wheat field. At all events, we have not yet come into touch with him to appreciate his “broadened” Outlook. But more important than Mr. Macmillan’s views is the truth of the bread position, and also bran. You refer to the shortage of bran this winter and in the same sentence say that “the development of high producing herds would increase if foods known to be suitable could be obtained at a cheap rate.” You infer here that bran is subject to a duty, and you say earlier in your article that a supply of cheap products is essential and “it cannot be available so long as importations of wheat are subject to a high tariff.” There is no duty on bran or pollard, or feed barley, and there has not been for two and a half years, and these are the stock feeds, not wheat. When you talk about “cheap” stock foods it may be information to your readers to know that bran has been selling for months for shipment from Lyttelton to North Island at £3 10s. to £4 a' ton, when bran in Sydney was selling at £5 ss. to £6 a ton. Bran has rarely, if ever, been so cheap in .New Zealand as this season, yet. up. till a couple of months ago stocks of. it were mounting up, compelling an. intensive publicity campaign to assist in its disposal. It appears to me that the silly propaganda in the North Island about the duty on dairy and pig feeds deluded your farmers with the idea that they were being forced to pay exorbitant prices for these products, and so they “missed the bus.”

You say that the “present duties keep up the price of bread,” etc., but. the price of the 21b. loaf in Sydney last week was 4d. to 5d., in Melbourne 4d. and in Christchurch 3d. (too low) to 4£d., so under -no circumstances, on Christchurch prices, should the price be more than sd. in the North Island, as it only takes the equivalent of a farthing a loaf to transport wheat or flour to northern ports. The wheatgrower’s return for the wheat in a 21b. loaf is l|d..; that of the millers and wheatgrowers combined is 2|d. If you got your wheat for nothing you would still be paying 4d. a loaf for your bread up there, -so you have to look elsewhere than the growers and millers for the caus_e of the high price of your bread. As I know your paper wields a. large influence in the farming population of Taranaki, it may interest them to learn just how cheap and how plentiful bran was in the early part of the year, and liow necessary it is for them to find out the price position before accepting the allegations of partisan correspondents, disgruntled politicians and disappointed merchants.—l am, etc., H. J. BOWLKER. 656 Worcester St., Christchurch, September 2, 1932.