SUPPLY OF BREADSTUFFS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2954, 14 December 1916, Page 6

SUPPLY OF BREADSTUFFS

THE GOVERNMENT'S IDEAS. .. The Minister of Commerce (the Hon. W, D. S. Mac Donald) is to be present at a conference to-day at Christchurch, at which he will'discuss with wheat-growers possible proposals for encouraging the growing of wheat. "I want to discuss with tho wheatgrowers," said Mr. Mac Donald yesterday, "the future prospects of wheat grown in the Dominion. We must all recognise that the wheat-growers have had a very bad time with frosts and droughts and the fluctuation of the markets. They have not had a very encouraging time, and I hope to see if they'can suggest some system that will equalise 'the rates of prices for wheat and flour. It must be patent to everybody that, owing to tho difficult conditions that the farmers are working under to-day, there must be an increase in ■ the price of flour on the pre-war rates or the rates of a few years back. Suitable agricultural labour is very much more difficult to obtain at the present time. These are the main points that will have to be discussed at the conference, and an effort will be made to determine what would be a reasonable and fair price for the season throughout, instead of this continual renwvalof duties and reimposing them again, which must be unsatisfactory for all parties concerned. I have had about one hundred replies from persons interested in wheat-grow-ing who will attend the conference, and I.hopo that they will be ableio givo" some information that will be of value to the Government in submitting proposals _ later in the direction', of encouraging them to continue wheatgrowing, so that New Zealand will be able to supply its own requirements."