THE PRESENT HIGH PRICE OF BREAD.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume I, Issue 22, 2 July 1869, Page 3

THE PRESENT HIGH PRICE OF BREAD.

(To the Editor of the Mount Ida ChbojSTicle.)

Sir, —I see, from some correspondence m your paper, that we are likely to have another agitation on the bread question. The inhabitants of Naseby, seem at least to be aware of the fact that the bakers have been charging them an exorbitant price for their bread, and they seem determined to kick against it in future.

For my part I cannot imagine what reason the bakers can assign to the public for the late rise of 3d on the 41b. loaf. There is little or no difference in the price of flour irom what it was when bread was selling at Is. ; — certainly not that difference which would entitle them to clap on £9 per ton. I have it on good authority that provincial flour can be delivered, even now on the Hogburn at £l7 per ton ; therefore I would ask whether it is fair, reasonable, or just, on the part of the bakers, to charge at the rate of £44 for every ton they bake. Such profits might have done at one time on the G oldfields, when miners were making large wages, and money abundant; but now things have entirely a different aspect. The miner is only makinoscanty wages best, so that if he is compelled to pay a high price for his provisions the only resource he has left is to get into debt or leave the district.

There is one thing that I may mention as a strange coincidence in connection with the., present matter ; it is —that has T. E. Johnston (your old correspondent on the bread question) taken his departure from amongst us, and the bakers become aware of the fact, than they enter into a compact, the result of which is that the publie are now charged Is. r w 3d. for their bread. Now, sir, if T. E! Johnston, by his letters in your paper, was

the means of creating such . a nightmare in the minds of the bakers as.induced them, on a former occasion to low<e* the bread to a shilling, I think it is high time the people of Naseby were on the look out for another champion. The champion I would advise would be a new baker, who would pledge himself to enter into no compact with the existing bakers, but would conduct his business in an upright and independent manner, and who would sell his bread at a fair profit.—l am, &c, Householder.