THE RISE IN BREAD.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2527, 20 September 1888, Page 2

THE RISE IN BREAD.

TO THB EDITOR, Silt, —Tlic bakers in Hamilton and Cambridge have risen the price of bread to 3J-d the 21 b. loaf for cash, and 4d if uooked. No reason is assigned for the rise, but I presume it is that flour has risen twenty or thirty shillings per ton. It is high time that the public enquired into the cause, both of the rise in price of flour by the millers and the rise in price of bread by the bakers. It will be remembered (especially by the farmers) that the bulk of the last season's wheat was bought by the millers at 2s lOd per bushel in the Waikatn, or 3s Id delivered in Auckland. The controversy which occupied many columns of the Press a few months ago will also bo remembered re the price of wheat and the relative value of flour. This controversy was terminated by Mr Firth's letter in the Herald in which he stated that the quoted prices of flour were no criterion as to the price paid by good marks, and that he was willing to sell best roller flour in parcels (for cash) at, 1 think, something less than £9 per ton, being satisfied with 8 per cent, profit, The price quoted by Mr Firth allows a fair margin of profit to the miller, considering the price of wheat, but if the bakers bought flour at this price in Waikato even with freight added they must have made a rich harvest by selling bread at 3d per 21b. loaf, and even though they have to pay the price as at present quoted for flour, viz., £12 and £12 10s, there is still an ample margin for profit in selling tho 21b. loaf for 3d, cash. In following out this argument I may re-quote the local in your last issue, which states that wheat is 4s 5d per bushel in Melbourne, and best roller flour ten guineas per ton ; but you do not state what the 21b. loaf is sold in Melbourne at, 2A-d. This is sufficient to show that tho millers in this provincial district are making a most exorbitant profit out of both the producers and consumers, and thus intensifying the depression which exists; but the remedy lies in the hands of the people themselves. Let the fanners do as a well-known settler in Hamilton has done this last season — have his wheat made into flour and sell it (as he did) at 18s per sack of 2001bs. to the public, and let the people, at whatever inconvenience to themselves, bake their own bread, and in a short time both millers and bakers will be brought to their senses and sell at a reasonable price.—Yours truly, T. C. H. Hamilton East, 19th September, 1888.