WHEAT AND FLOUR.

Shannon News, 26 February 1926, Page 2

WHEAT AND FLOUR.

WHAT rLOTTRMII*3xBBS THINK. POLICY WILL CREATE SHORTAGE. "What will bo'the effect of the Government's wheat and flour scheme?" In the following trenchant reply, Mr. John C. Young answered a reporter's question yesterday. "The Australian fiourmiller will be delighted, since he .will capture most of the trade, whilst on the other hand all the various New Zealand interests will suffer." "The dairy and poultry industries will have to pay an increased price for pollard and bran, sine'e it will be sold on Australian parity. But, more serious than that is the jeopardising of the offal supply itself since New Zealand will receive whatever quantity Australia can spare. * The .southern wheat grower will also suffer, as his price for wheat is depressed by the unprotected and unrestricted importations of Australian flour; consequently he must accept a correspondingly low price." When It Gets Down to That Level. "Only can the New Zealand miller! buy. Meantime, he must close down his mill and pay off his hands. '' The apparent concession to the North Island poultry man is illusory, for he will immediately pay a higher price for his bran, and pollard and buying from Australia duty free, may not cheapen his wheat cost, for he should later be able to buy even cheaper from the South Island, where wheat prices must inevitably come down. ■V; Further, Mr. Hawken's avowed policy of stimulating wheat-growing defeats itself by depressing wheat values and consequently discouraging wheatgrowing. , Whilst he retains undisturbed the ! duty on wheat in order, so he says* to give confidence to the wheat-grower in stabilising the duties, yet he himself breaks that confidence by forthwith suspending the duty on North Island poultry wheat, with the aforementioned result. "Mr. Hawken has been emphatically warned that this is a year demanding special treatment with such a large wheat shortage. He has forgotten a chain is only as strong as the weakest link. "The heart of the problem lies liere —that Australian flour is now regularly landing in New Zealand, costing about £l9. That obviously fixes the selling price of New Zealand flour, which means in the form of wheat, say 6/5 f.o.b. South. Yet that central" fact is the one Mr. Hawken ignores. "Instead, he implies in his cleverlyworded statement the? wheat-growers will get a high price; there will be plenty of bran and pollard supplies for the dairy and. poultry industries and flour will be unaltered. "In a word, the weak link m Mr. Hawken's scheme assumes the New Zealand flourailler is a blithering idiot who, although he can only get some 6/5 f.o.b. for his wheat, will submit to paying 7/- or even higher prices to the farmer. "If he, instead, choses the lesser oi two evils and closes his mill, the result will be stalemate, the farmer awaiting the anticipated high price, the miller waiting for the price to drop to enable him to grist to a profit. Meantime the Australian miller does our flour busi ness and the offal supplies are at the mercy of Australia."