VALUE OF WHEAT DUTIES

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 789, 9 October 1929, Page 11

VALUE OF WHEAT DUTIES

economically necessary INDUSTRY WANTED IN N.Z. Press Association ♦ WELLINGTON, Today tn tba course of evidence at , i Wheat Protection Inquiry, which continued its sittings today, Mr. W. Machin, general manager of the Farmers’ Co-operative Association of Canterbury, said it was estimated that the protection of the wheat-growing industry cost the bread eaters of New Zealand less than five shillings a head per annum on the average. The average net profit to the grower over a series of years was 4d a bushel, which could not be considered excessive. He submitted that New Zealand must retain the wheat-growing industry if she wished to maintain a race of good agricultural farmers. Sound mixed farming practice and education demanded the growing of w.heat, and both soil and sons would be the poorer without it. Dumping duties wer£ not efficacious, aud embargoes seemed out of the question. He believed it would be better to export the New Zealand surplus of wheat in the form of flour iu order that milling might be done in New Zealand. Professor A. H. Tocker, professor of economics at Canterbury College, subnltted a lengthy statement in which he classed wheat growing as essentially a key industry, any dislocation of which would have far-reaching results on other related industries. The effects might be more costly than the duties on wheat and flour are at present. The effect of the removal of the duties would be to reduce wheat frowing by about half the present acreage, and the present was an unsuitable time to introduce drastic changes in the conditions of production. The industry produced a commodity which was a first essential of life. Overseas supplies were somewhat unreliable and subject to variations in quantity and price, so that, it might be cheaper in the long run for the community to make some sacrifice to secure adequate reliable local supplies at stable prices.