METAL TOKENS

Waikato Times, Volume 119, Issue 19880, 8 May 1936, Page 2

METAL TOKENS

TO BUY BREAD COMMISSION’S PLAN. FINER PRICE ADJUSTMENTS. The use of tickets or metal tokens, representing portions of a penny, for use in purchasing bread, is suggested bv the Royal Commission whicn was appointed to inquire into the wheat, dour, and bread industries in Australia. The use of such tokens, it was indicated in the Commission’s report, tabled in the Federal Parliament last week, would enable more equitable prices to be charged to the consumer. The report states that the Bread Board should encourage the industry to attack the problem of stabilising the margin of profit between costs and prices by the adoption of some system of tickets or metal tokens, sold to regular customers at a price somewhat lower than the normal cash price for a single loaf; this would effectively allow smaller variations in the price of the individual loaf than were at present practicable. The adjustment from time to time of prices to a fair -and reasonable basis presented difficulties if the variations in the price of a single loaf were limited to a minimum of a farthing. The report sets out the following two systems by which adjustments could be made: The sale of tokens in dozens or half-dozens, which allows the price of the dozen to be varied by Id, and effectively permits of variations in the price of the individual loaf of fractions of as small as onetwelfth of Id; or the use of tokens representing a fraction of Id. In the latter ease, if the price of bread was 5 l-8d on a daily cash basis, a customer would pay ssd for the first loaf purchased, and receive a loaf of bread and three tokens of l-8d each; on the three subsequent days, he could pay sd, plus one of the tokens, for each loaf purchased.