THE MILLING TRUST.

Observer, Volume XXI, Issue 1180, 10 August 1901, Page 2

THE MILLING TRUST.

An Undesirable Combine. IT may not be known generally that flour has - advanced a pound per ton. No reason, as fur we can gather, has been assigned for the increase in price. All that is known by the public is that flour has advanced, and that in some of the Southern cities bread has gone up accordingly. But all the same there is reason to believe that the present rise is the first step in the operations of the Southern Milling Trust. This Trust, a combination principally of Southern mills, was formed a couple of years ago, about the time of a demand for higher wages, and as'the object, apparently, was a protection of interests, and a desire to thwart any undue demands, nothing was thought of it. ••• ••• ■•• But from a mere association of the kind it has grown to something more. It is now a Trust pure and simple, as the South is probably finding out. We have it on good authority that many of the bakers there are obliged, for obvious reasons^ to deal with this Trust, and as the Trust arranges the price, the public are affected through the bakers. Whore it will all end is a matter of concern. The joint move has been made, and in some places the public are paying, in consequence, a half-penny more for their bread than formerly. ••• ••• ••• There is no sufficient or logical reason to account for this rise. We have no shortage of wheat> and the farmers are not getting a cent more for their output than has hitherto been paid .to them. It is not accounted for by reason of higher wages, for among the mills standing out is one that was paying the highest rate at the very time the wages grievance was on, and on that account was exempted by the Board of Conciliation. Therefore, the only possible object seems to be a lining of the pockets of the Trust at the expease of the public. The recent rise is a very good start. ••• , ••• ••• Trusts are a bane to any community, and' a Flour Trust is the worst of all - trusts. In shipping, railways, iron, and numbers of other things, they are bad enoiTgh ; but as we are not all travellers, and as iron is not used in .every thing, jja these directions they are not a general injury. But with byead it is different. There are none who can do without it, and any ring that forces up the price, unnecessarily, of an indispensable article of food, with the object solely of enriching itself, should be throttled by the Government. How to suppress it is the difficulty. One plan of bursting up a corner is to. drop the duties arid allow the imported article to come' in free, as Sir John .(then the Hon. Mr) McKenzie

threatened some years ago in the case of a corner in potatoes. But if that were dpne "with a flour ring the f armor' would suffer. . The better quality of Australian wheat and the free entry would be too great a handicap, and . his produce would lie on his hands ' or would depreciate Considerably. ••v- ■■ •■*,- ' .•'" .—■'.,. . ■ Another- roinedy;- 7 lies in : the establishment of "^co-operative flour 7 mills, just as the settlers have combined and established co-operative creameries in • order to obtain the best price for their milk. It has also been suggested in the Labour interest that Arbitration Courts should fix the minimum prices of foodstuffs just as they now -fix the prices of labour. This, however, opens un the question whether the master millers or any other set of employers are not quite as much entitled to combine for the purpose of keeping up prices as the workmen are entitled to combine to raise wages and shorten hours. .». .«. .». Of course, milling and other trusts are the natural results of our Labour and Protection laws. Under a free trade system, with its unrestricted competition, combines such as this Milling Trust would be practically impossible. But now that combinations of workmen are the order of the day, so also we may .expect shortly to see combinations of employers in every branch of trade and manufacture. In the long ran, it is the working man who is compelled to pay the piper, and so it will be in the present instance.