The Press Thursday, January 13, 1927. Wheat, Flour, and Bread.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18898, 13 January 1927, Page 8

The Press Thursday, January 13, 1927. Wheat, Flour, and Bread.

"iir report, in yesterday's paper, of the proceedings at the opening of the conference of the New Zealand Master Bakers' and Pastrycooks' Association will remind (he public that the wheatgrower and (he miller are only two of the three people who co-operate to put bread upon the table. In the prolonged controversy over the wheat question the baker has almost escaped mention. Nor, so far as is known, does he need to be very carefully considered, because, whatever may be the profits he makes, large or small, (he price of bread is not an unreasonably heavy burden upon any household. The baker's importance, in the wheat problem, is in the 'altitude he adopts in what is still, unfortunately, a conflict of interests between the ■wheat-grower and (he miller. From some sentences in the annual report of the Association one may gather that the baker is on the side of the millers. "On more than " one occasion/' the report says, " we "strongly protested, lo the Govcrn- " ment against the importation of Aus- " fralian flour, believing (hat in the "best interests of the Dominion it, " was desirable to import wheat so as "to obviate interfering with the " working of the New Zealand mills." II is certainly desirable that the milling industry should thrive—as desirable as that it should thrive through the efficiency resulting from real and sharp competition—but it is not less important that the wheat-growing industry should flourish; and the bakers would be more likely to stand well with the public if they more clearly recognised and proclaimed this fact. There was nothing to prevent the importation of u heat after the Government; abandoned ils policy of control, and if the millers did not import H, it was their own fault, and the Bakers' Association need not have "strongly protested" at all. But the most interesting feature of the Association's opening meeting was the address by the Minister for Lands, Mr McLeod, who is also Minister for Industries and Commerce. Mr McLeod contrived to make an interesting speech without saying anything much more definite than that New Zealand cannot look forward to being " solely a " primary producers' country," that farmers must "look fairly at the prob"lem and seek lo set up industries "side by side," and that everybody must do* his best lo benefit the whole country. This careful avoidance of anything but generalities was hardly to be expected of Mr McLeod, who has on occasion 6ppken out bold and clear for 1 the overburdened man on the land. Hq bad an excellent opportunity to tell a class of manufacturers who know little about the fanner something about the importance of the farmer to the baker and everyone else, and it is a pity that he missed it.