THE FOUR-POUND LOAF.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7679, 1 February 1904, Page 3

THE FOUR-POUND LOAF.

An enquirer desires us > Wanganui Herald) to state why the quartern loaf costs 7d cash in Wanganui to-day, or 8d if booked, when flour stands at a considerably lower figure than when the price of bread was raised by the bakers to its present point. A most pertinent question, all will no doubt allow, butwe cannot answer it. Nor have we been able to discover any satisfactory reason outside the office tor what must be re garded as almost a famine piico. The matter is one that is already beginning to seriously exercise the poorer class of tbe community, and wo are only surprised that the question has not been raised before. We are very complacent in some respects. Not so the Home folks, and at this moment England is moved to its depths at Chamberlain's proposal to add a fraction of a penny on to the cost of the people's staff of life. Nearer homo, the South Canterbury people are beginning to ask each other and the papers how comes it that they have to pay 6;Vd cash or 7d booked for the four-pound loaf, the same price as when flour was selling at £12 per ton. That means they are not content to pay -Id less cash—or Id less booked—than we do ! In Dunedin the recognised price at the time of writing is just s£d, but we learn, on good authority, that bread can be had for 5d and even less. Enquiry reveals that in Christchurch the price varies from to 6d, the average figure being sd. Now this must strike others, as well as us, aB a very extraordinary state of affairs, calling for explanation. The price of bread is a matter which must interest all classes, but it is an especially important consideration for the working man with a family, whose advocate we are. It is well known that of recent months competition amongst millers has been particularly keen, and as a matter of fact flour has dropped between _£2 and £3 in consequence, but we have not benefited at all. Bakers have no more call to be philantropists than their neighbours, but between s£d and 7d or 8d there is a big difference for which it is impossible to account. Either the bakers are being very badly served—or we are. This undue inflation of the price of bread leads one to wonder why the Premier does not tackle the problem to his hand instead of wasting his time in the labour mix-up in the Rand, which does not concern him or us at all. There is something radically wrong somewhere that the worker must give an altogether disproportionate price for bis bread. Where the blame should lie is rather more than we are prepared to state at present, but that someone is doing very well out of the boom cannot be gainsaid. It may be that we are paying the expenses of the fight between tho Flour Trust and tbe independent millers—not at all an unlikely thing. But, whatever is the true explanation, the unpalatable fact re mains that we are asked, and give, as much for our bread to day as when flour was dearer by £2 or £o. If it were bread only tbat had risen probably nothing would be beard of it in outpresent prosperity, but considered in conjunction with tbe necessary incri ast-d cost of meat, butter, wood and other things, a 7d or 8d ioaf is a most serious matter, and we need no excuse for dealing with the subject.