BREAD INDUSTRY

Hokitika Guardian, 26 January 1921, Page 4

BREAD INDUSTRY

IMPORTANCE TO THE EMPIRE

[by TKI.EURANI RKR PRESS ASSOCIATION']

AUCKLAND, Jan 24. The Master Bakers' Association, at its conference in Auckland, lias had the subject of an increase in the current price of bread before it, and there was a further development at this morning’s session, when the Seretary ol the Board of Trade (Mr J. W. Collins), in the course of an address, advised the Association to appoint n committee to confer with the Board on the matter in February next. The suggestion was adopted.

The Board of Trade, said Mr Collins, had given the Inking industry a groat deni of attention during the last three years, as it was recognised that bread was so much a mainstay ol civilisation that its production must generally be considered a business in which the whole community, and therefore the Government, are vitally interested throughout the British Empire. During the war. one of the first commodities subjected to control was bread. In New Zealand the control was extended to the purchase, sale ,aiul distribution of wheat, and to the fixation of the price of Hour, bran, and pollard, which meant that complete price control had been exercised from the producer to the consumer. There could be- no doubt that control had steadied business and relieved bakers of some of the speculative risks attached to their business. No work of tin; Board of Trade had been more essential to the national welfare than those operations.

Mr Collins referred to the steps taken by the Boaixl to ensure a yearly return of the trade. In this connexion, he stated that in future in the control of industries much more .attention would he given to the proper supervision of accountancy methods. It would help the Boaixl in solving the difficult questions of deciding upon a’fair price of bread during the coming year. Members of the Association had recently received notices asking them to furnish complete returns for the first four weeks of the present year, and lie hoped that the conference would not adjourn wit.iout resolving to advise members to deal promptly with this request, for promptness would enable the Board to adjust broad prices without calling upon them for further evidence other than that supplied hv the executive in the conference.