WHEAT AND FLOUR DUTIES SUPPORTED

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 65, 18 March 1931, Page 2

WHEAT AND FLOUR DUTIES SUPPORTED

REPRESENTATIONS MADE TO THE PRIME MINISTER. A conference, attended by representatives of all interested in the question of wheat-growing and allied industries, was held in the Chamber of Commerce building at Christchurch yesterday, with Mr C. 11. Hewlett in the chair, and at its conclusion, the following telegram was sent to the Prime Minister by the president of the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce:— “This representative conference of farmers, millers, bakers, stock agents, manufacturers, merchants and members of the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce, having received with satisfaction the Prime Minister’s promise that the sliding scale of duties on wheat and flour will be continued until the end of the present year, is investigating the possibilities of a reduction in the price of bread through economies in costs which have been proposed by the Government, and a special committee has been set up to report later. "In the meantime it urges upon the Government the necessity for maintaining the present scale of duties for future harvests after the present year, for the following reasons:— ill "The Dominion should be selfsupporting in its v-heat requirements. (2) 'The protection w-hich is given to wheat-growers by every country in the world. (o) The necessity for maintaining the standard of real wages and re* turns in New Zealand as against those prevailing in other countries, such as Russia, which are selling cheap wheat, in some cases produced by forced labour, and depressing the world's market?. . “The large employment which given by the wheat industry and its allied, trades at reasonable cost to the Dominion. (o) “The reasonable price at which bread can be sold in the Dominion in comparison with other manufactured articles, and in ratio to rates of wages.”