WHEAT DUTIES

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1052, 16 August 1930, Page 11

WHEAT DUTIES

The “Manawatu Evening Standard” of Friday, July 18, in a long article on wheat production, warned its readers that “to allow the wheat-grower to go out of business rather than keep him in at the present cost to the consumer might be falling out of the frying-pan into the fire.” There is the fact, to begin with, that Australia is not always blessed with a bounteous harvest, and the “Standard” asks what the position oC the North Island poultrymen and pig-raisers would be if the Australian crop failed. But even if New Zealand could get as much wheat from Australia as it wanted at a price it could pay “that would mean something over two millions sterling a year going out of New Zealand,” and the “Standard” wonders what products from New Zealand would be given in exchange. We are practically shut out of their market by their tariff barrier, especially our potatoes and our butter, and “every importer knows to his sorrow” that -when the balance of imports is badly against us our imports cost more. It therefore concludes that “New Zealanders would be well advised to adopt as a national policy the principle that the Dominion should be self-contained as far as practicable in the matter of its chief food supplies, of which wheat is the most important of all.” This is so sound and wise that it is not necessary to carry the argument any farther; but if it were necessary to add anything, it would be sufficient to remind the North Island that the price of bread is higher in Canada and America, which have dollar wheat, than it is in New Zealand, where wheat costs a dollar . and a-half.—Christ-church “Press,” 22/7/30.—12.