WEIGHT OF BREAD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 August 1943, Page 2

WEIGHT OF BREAD

AGAIN DISCUSSED IN HOUSE MR POLSON’S CRITICISM. MINISTERS IN REPLY (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. The weight of the loaf was again the subject of'extended discussion in the House of Representatives yesterday. Bringing up the question when the Estimates of the Department of Industries and Commerce were under review, Mr W. J. Polson said the housewives of the Dominion were not getting a fair deal. Under the regulations which the Government had brought clown, he said, the ordinary loaf could be sold at 14 ounces and fancy bread at 12 ounces. He had a pile of letters from bakers all over the country saying he was quite right in what he had said. The Government had issued the regulations after a subsidy on flour had been withdrawn because the Government found it too expensive. Today the public could not buy a fullweight loaf unless a day or two of notice was given. He had been informed that only about 250 out of 2000 sold were full weight. Bakers had told him that except for hotels and institutions nobody got the full-weight loaf unless it was specially asked for. Replying, the Minister of Industries and Commerce, Mr Sullivan, named a list of organisations which had discussed both the standard specifications for bread and also the regulations complained of by the Opposition. He said that the organisations, which included the Women’s Institutes, the Women’s Food Value League, and the Women’s Division of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union, had approved the specifications and regulations. There was nothing new in the Opposition’s complaint, continued Mr Sullivan. It had been heard for years. Before the regulations were issued the public had no protection at all. The loaf now sold under the regulations weighed lib 12 ounces, but used to be sold at 11b 8 ounces and even at 11b 4 ounces. The public were getting more bread now than previously. Before the regulations were issued the loaf could be sold at any weight at all. Mr Sullivan said, provided the customer was informed of the weight of the bread. There was no protection in that. Mr Webb said that his department was associated with the administration of weights and measures. He produced two loaves, one a tin loaf and the other a barracouta, and said that both were over-weight. The question of the weight of bread, he added, had been a vexed one for years. The standard for bread was the best thing that had been done. Mr Langstone (Government, Waimarino) said that the lower the wages of the worker the greater the proportion of his income spent on bread. He could not understand why there should not be one pound loaves if people wanted them so long as it was not a question of waste.