PRIME MINISTER EXPLAINS.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume XXIV, 9 April 1927, Page 3

PRIME MINISTER EXPLAINS.

Lock own coHBKsi-omuiNTf WELLINGTON, April 6. The Prime Minister, having spent the greater part of his life in the “Far North” of the Dominion, where wheat no longer is grown, hud had no occasion to specialise on this cereal and its products till he assumed his present responsibilities. Even now he appears, to have failed to make his meaning quite clear to the deputation of wheatgrowers that waited upon him in Christchurch last week with a »e- - save them from ' Australian. competition. The report of his reply to the deputation, he told an interviewer, was misleading 1 , as rt might be inferred that he was speaking of wheat importations from Australia, while he really was referring to flour. Having explained the meaning his words were intended to convey he added a very important statement, “I also indicated,” he said, “that the Government was prepared to submit to Parliament next session a proposal to raise the duty on flour by about £1 a ton in order to put it in its proper relation to the duty on wheat.” This comes as another irritant to the public. Last year the duty on flour was raised 10s

<. ton, front £2 10s to £3, to bring it into line with the duty on wheat. Then why this further twenty shillings?