Bread on the Home Front

New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 296, 23 February 1945, Page 7

Bread on the Home Front

NY Aucklander will tell you with emphasis and detail that the loaf he is eating is not a patch on the one made by his former baker who is now zoned to the other side of the town. We were in need of the reminder in a recent Home Front Talk that at least we are sure of an adequate supply of bread at a fixed price. Looking at it from this angle we realise that we are

not rioting, queueing up, or paying black market prices for bread; we are not even hungry enough to eat up all our crusts. Some of this is due to good luck — we have quite a large wheat-growing area, a’ small popu-

lation, other good food, and no hungry neighbours; but the talk dealt mainly with the good management aspect — planning and control of production, distribution and price. An economist might point out that large subsidies are paid to keep the bread at its low and steady price, and contend that though this way of meeting high costs may be fairer, less painful, and better for morale, we should be reminded that we are paying for it. A nutritionist might add that our health would be better if wheat were so scarce that we had to eat a wholemeal or near-wholemeal nationat loaf and to rely more on vegetables. But the Home Front Talks are not prepared by carping fellows like these; they are concerned with describing policy in action, not with questioning or shaping it, and within these limits they do quite a good job.