CORRESPONDENCE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1020, 8 December 1883, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

We do not hold ourselves responsible for the opinions expressed by our correspondents. THE BREAD QUESTION, To the Editor. Sir, —It is evident by the tone of your leaders, etc., that you are of opinion that the price now charged for bread —viz., 7d per loaf—is exorbitant. Any one who has had anything to do with the baking business here knows that for some time past the profits are so small at to scarcely allow us to make ends meet. This *fact alone, 1 should think, would be sufficient to show that the artic'e cannot be produced for 6d. You seem also to convey the idea that, as the full weight is now imperative we have been compelled to put tho extra charge on the loaf. Now the amount of profit to be got from making bread even so much light as one ounce in 64 is so small that the gain is not worth the name. It takes a man just as long to make a loaf which weighs 31b 15oz as it does to make a loaf which weighs 41 bs, and just as much firo to cook it, and just as many horses to deliver it, so that tho gain mmt bo solely on the flour, which is at the rate of one ounce in 84, very small indeed ; and I do not admit that the bread was ever so much as one ounce light. I may be pardoned for assuming that the bakers know their business equally as wall as newspaper men know theirs, and it would be better for the public to get the facts of the case before they condemn the bakers. — I am, etc., Thos. Taylor. Ashburton, Deo. Bth, 1883. Our correspondent simply makes our contention stronger, namaly, that if it is found necessary for the bakers t > raise tho price of bread for no other reason than that they are now compelled to give full weight, it proves that the law has systematically been broken hitherto, as fraud in any trade was never legal. As to 7d not being exorbitant for a 41b loaf, that is For the customer and not the purveyor to decide, and it remains for the former to discover whether he can obtain good bread at a cheaper rate than is now being charged for it in Ashburton.— Ed. G.