FLOUR FROM AUSTRALIA.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 August 1917, Page 5

FLOUR FROM AUSTRALIA.

FARMERS AND MILLERS TO 'BE CONSIDERED.

By Wire.—Parliamentary Reporter. Wellington, Lapt Night.

The problem created by tl:o recent heavy importations of cheap Australian flour has not yet been considered formally by Cabinet, but it is down for early discussion. The Prime Minister and his colleagues recogniso the difficulty of the position. Australian flour, duty paid, can be delivered to New Zealand bakers at a price that threatens' to put many lo«al mills out of business. Mills in the Commonwealth are .working on huge accumulations of wheat that cannot be despatched to Britain owing to shipping shortage, and if this year's crop is an average one," flour may come to New Zealand at. prices evon lower than at .present, and big quantities may be dumped. Tlie Government here has no objection to cheap flour as far as it affects consumers, but Ministers have to face the fact that they have induced the Now Z&land farmers to grow Wheat against the threatened local shortage by promising' a price which millers state now they cannot pay in competition with Australian ilovuv A further fact for the Government to consider is that the present conditions of the Australian market are temporary, being due to war conditiotia. We cannot, therefore, count upon cheap flour from the Commonwealth in norma! years, and so it is not in the .public interest that New Zealand growers' should 'be discouraged.