PRICE OF BREAD.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2339, 5 April 1892, Page 3

PRICE OF BREAD.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —It is not so interesting to your readers to know whether the bakers in Wellington or the bakers in Temuka charge the highest prices, as it is to know whether we are charged too much for the staff of life or not, and, if so, how we can remedy the evil. A correspondent in your to-day's issue tells us that bread in Wellington is not made of all Temuka Hour, but in the proportion of one Temuka to two of rubbish (stone-made flour, I presume), and that Temuka flour is sold there at 4s per 251 b. Temuka bread is not made of all Temuka, or roller, flour, and it is better that it is not. Roller Hour was sold here at 4s per 251 b, until D. Owers came and gave us a taste of Timaru prices. Since then it has been sold a little cheaper. But bakers don't buy their flour in 251 b, and the price of flour per ton at present is £ll an d £l2 respectively for stone and roller. One ton of flour makes over 750 41b loaves; 750 41b loaves at 7jd each is £23 8s Od—twice as much as a ton of flour. Therefore the baker gets as much for baking a loaf as the farmer and the miller get for growing the wheat and making the flour ; aye, more : the baking of bread costs the consumer as much as the rent of the land, the growing of wheat, and making flour ! that does not seem to me to be a fair division of the profit of labor. But there are extenuating circumstances or conditions that bakers have to contend with. Like all others, they are victims of the excessive competition of this age of morbid individualism. They err in combining to perpetuate and augment the evil of these unhealthy conditions, at thb expense of their customers. There are four or five men and as many horses in this district occupied delivering less bread than one man could deliver with a wheelbarrow under better conditions; that adds a large item to the cost of bread, and is not profit. Bad debts and long accounts are also against fair prices, and exorbitant prices are the prime cause of bad debts and long accounts. There are those who will not pay any price if they can avoid paying, but there are a'great many others who could, and would, punctually pay fair prices, who are quite unable to pay exorbitant charges. No artificial means can long maintain the price of necessaries out of proportion to the value of labor; the public must ultimately combine to defend themselves against such tactics, or do worse. Ten men who can muster the price of a sack of flour each by combining can buy flour at the prices I have mentioned; or, better still, if a sufficient number of farmers and others interested would co-operate and have a mill and bakery in a central position, large enough to supply a district, say, as large as South Canterbury, with a distributing agent in every locality, we could have a better price for wheat, and bread cheaper than we could make it ourselves. —I am, &c., Farmer. April 2,1892.