PRICE OF BREAD.

Taranaki Daily News, 25 January 1921, Page 5

PRICE OF BREAD.

QUESTION OF AN INCREASE. DECISION NEXT MONTH. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Auckland, Last Night. The Master Bakers’ Association, at its annual conference in Auckland, has discussed the subject of an increase in the current price of bread, and there was a further development at this session, when the secretary of the Board of Trade (Mr. J. W. Collins), in the course of an address, advised the association to appoint a committee to confer with the board on the matter in February next. This suggestion was adopted. The Board of Trade, said Mr. Collins, had given the baking industry a great deal of attention during the last three years, as it was recognised that bread was so much the mainstay of civilisation that its production must generally be considered a business in which the whole community, and therefore- the Government, are vitally interested. Throughout the British Empire during the war one of the first commodities subjected to control was bread. In New Zealand control was extended to the purchase, sale, and distribution of wheat and to the fixation of the prices of flour, bread, and pollard, which meant that complete price control had been exercised from the producer to the consumer There could be no doubt that control had steadied business and relieved the bakers of some of the speculative risks attached to their business. No work of the Board of Trade had been more essential to the national welfare than these operations. Mr. Collins referred to the steps taken by the board to ensure a yearly return of trade in this connection. He stated in future, in the control of industries, much m-re attention would be given to the proper supervision of accountancy methods. It would help the board in solving the difficult question bf deciding upbn a fair price for bread during the coming year. The association members had recently received notices asking them to furnish complete returns for the first four weeks of the present year, and he hoped the conference would not adjourn without resolving to advise members to deal promptly with this request, for promptness would enable the board to adjust bread prices without calling upon them for further evidence other than that supplied by the executive in conference.