1.—17.

[w. NASH.

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out of the average weekly income of £2 12s. (Md. there is £1 9b. Bd. spent on food. The size of the families varied from 5-1 to 64, in no case being more than 1J increase. If you take the expenditure on bread and flour you will find that out of the 14s. 4§d. spent on food 3s. o|d. is spent on bread and flour ; out of the 17s. ]o|;d. spent on food 3s. 3fd. is spent on bread and flour. That is almost the same-sized family as the former. Out of the £1 Os. 9Jd. spent on food 3s. 3|-d. is spent on bread and flour ; out of the weekly income of £1 16s. 6Jd., of which £1 2s. is spent on food, there is 3s. 4Jd. spent on bread and flour ; and out of the weekly income of £2 12s. o|d., of which £1 9s. Bd. is spent on food, there is 4s. 3fd. spent on bread and flour. The main point is this : that the percentage ot bread and flour expenditure to total food expenditure was, in the case of the family with the lowest income, 21 per cent. ; in the next, 18 per cent. ; in the next, 15i per cent. ; in the next, 15 per cent. ; and in the highest, 14 per cent. As the income grew, so the percentage of expenditure on bread and flour automatically declined. That is supported by an inquiry that was held by our own Government Statistician in 1920. The Government Statistician in 1920, through the Labour Department, made some inquiries with regard to household budgets, and in his inquiries into prices he sets out the expenditure on the various commodities in families where the budgets gave incomes of less than £4 10s. a week as compared with others with incomes of £4 10s. a week and over. He gives the '' number in family " as 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. The percentage of total income expended on bread and flour in a, family of two where the income is under £4 10s. a week is 4-28 ; in a family of three, 4-32 ; in a family of four, 4-31 ; in a family of five, 5-17 ; and in a family of six, 5-36. When the income is £4- 10s. a week and over the percentage expended on bread and flour in a family of two is 1-19 ; in a family of three, 3-25 ; in a family of four, 3-57 ; in a family of five, 4-41 ; and in a family of six, 5-06. In every case the percentage of expenditure on bread and flour declined as the income grew. And this is on small incomes. Of course, with a man who has £1,000 a year or £2,000 a year the percentage of expenditure on bread and flour would be practically a few shillings per cent.—say, 10s. per cent. —because he cannot eat any more bread and flour than the ordinary person. The point I want to drive home here is that the lower the income the greater the expenditure on bread and flour. There is more bread and flour consumed in the home of the lowest-paid worker than there is bread and flour consumed in the home of the person with £1,000 a year. A tax on wheat, then, automatically means that the people with the lower incomes pay the greater sum. That is the iniquity of the thing. It may be possible to do something for the wheat-grower, it may be possible to do something for the flour-miller, and it may be possible to do something for the baker; but that is not the point. It is unjust and iniquitous to so organize your taxation that the persons with the lower incomes pay more than the persons with the higher incomes. Those are the two points I wanted to make. There are other things I could go into. There is the question of wages, for instance ; but Ido net want to go into those particularly. But I may say that I have gone into the question of bread-prices. I find that the Wellington Hospital, for instance, manufactures its own bread, and I have obtained a return from them during the last few days which shows that the cost to them is 2Jd. per pound. That is, roughly, 9d. for the 4 lb. loaf, or 4id. for the 21b. loaf. That apparently, however, does not make any allowance for overhead charges, and it is certainly necessary that there should be some allowance for overhead charges. And that, again, does not make any allowance for delivery charges, and I should say that the average cost for delivery is Id. a loaf. The 2 lb. loaf or the 4 lb. loaf ? —The 2 lb. loaf. I think I can give you some information in regard to that. I know of one baking organization that employs four drivers, with four motor-cars. They deliver, on the average, to shopkeepers and boardinghouses and private houses 6,000 loaves of bread per week. It varies slightly. Last week it was 6,018, and the week before it was 6,110, but on the average it is about 6,000 loaves of bread per week, for which they have four drivers and four motorcars. They have not worked out the detailed costs, but I know the drivers' wage-rate is, roughly, £4 lis. per week ; so that they have to pay £18 4s. a week in wages alone ; and on top of that there is the upkeep of the four motor-cars. So Id. per loaf is a small estimate for the cost of delivery. Talking to the son of the proprietor this morning, he was of opinion that Id. per loaf was a fair estimate. One penny on the 2 lb. loaf ?—Yes, Id. on the 2 lb. loaf. He said that they charged sd. to the shopkeeper, who sells it over the counter at 6d., and that they deliver it for 7d. This man's returns would be more valuable than the returns of the ordinary baker, because he does nothing else-but bake bread and deliver it. I have looked into the work of the average baker, and for the life of me I cannot see that he is getting too much at 6d. per loaf, or delivering at 7d. per loaf, considering that the price of flour is £17 13s. (He has to pay £16 ss. for the flour down South, plus £1 Bs. freight and delivery charges.) The baker is not getting it, and yet the baker is getting 100 per cent, higher prices compared with the 1893 to 1912 period. He is getting 100 per cent, on the prices ruling at that time. lam satisfied that he does not get a penny too much for the service he renders to the community. So the price of bread is not unfairly or unjustly high because of the charges made to the community by the baker. There might be ways and means, of course, by reorganizing the baking industry whereby we could produce and deliver the bread at lower prices. We could get scientific distribution, and we might get scientific manufacture, and then it might be possible to reduce the baking-charges. But I think it is in the cost of the flour that the high cost of the bread is to be found. A lot of contradictory statements have been made in various returns, &c., with regard to the price of turning wheat into flour, but I have here an extract from the Department of Industries and Commerce report for 1919. In that they set out what they consider should be fair prices for the various commodities that are used, including flour and bread. When wheat was ss. 3d. the price of flour should be £13, and the price of bread 7d. for the 2 lb. loaf. What, report is that you are quoting from ?—lt is the report of the Industries and Commerce Department for 1919. It was called the Board of Trade at that time. This was-the recommendation of the Board of Trade in 1919 : " We have considered the question whether the fixation of maximum prices