WHEAT AND FLOUR.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXIII, 20 March 1926, Page 13

WHEAT AND FLOUR.

THE PRICE QUESTION. VIEWS OF MEMBER FOR ' ■ WAITAKI. At tho meeting of the South Canterbury executive of tho Farmers’ Union yesterday, Mr J. Bitcliener, M.P. for Waitaki, referring to the wheat question, reported on what lie had done at the recent conference to consider this matter. The whole question had been thoroughly threshed out, and the result they all knew. Whether the Government had done light or wrong was not for him to say; time would tell that. Farmers required every encouragement to grow wheat, and ho hoped that those who do grow it, would get some recompense for their labour. Generally speaking, farmers received with satisfaction the announcement that the Government were going' to givo what was called, a- freo markoti*—• really it was a protected market. Mr Bitchener added that' lie regretted to see so many silly things written in the newspapers concerning this question; it was evident that the writers of some of these .letters did not understand the subject. One writer had suggested that the price of wheat should be 8s per bushel. that was absurd. It was the flour, rather than the wheat question, that should be considered. There was a movement in Australia to capture the New Zealand , flour trade, as was evident from the way that flour in Australia had been falling until to-day it stood ab £l2 10s per ton, f.o.b. _