rtittro in t4t Rita.
BAKERS, MILLERS, AND COEN-MERCHANTS.
28th August 1856. - note in your last a letter on the subject of " the high price of bread." It has always been the habit of the press, and the public, when offering from this evil, to vent their displeasure in charges against bakers, millers, and corn-merchants, of appropriating to themselves excessive pro- fits. The cry is a groundless one. In this age of Free-trade and Laisser- faire, competition exists in all trades to such an extent that such a result is impossible. The facilities for quickly transporting produce from one part of the kingdom, and even of the globe, to another, has tended to equalise profits as well as prices.
As regards the case of flour-millers in particular, they have been exposed to a great amount of competition by the extensive admission of flour, from North and South America, France, and Spain, into a county already fully supplied with flour-producing apparatus, though admittedly deficient in power of furnishing the raw material, wheat.
This influx of flour, a perishable article, often causes it to be sold at prices under the cost of production ; as was the case in the early part of this month as far as regards middling and dark-coloured qualities, u n which de- scription of flour and wheat the great decline alluded to chiefly been felt, whilst it has been much leas upon first-class fine-coloured qualities, from which the best bread used by the wealthier classes is made. This, being a standard article of uniform quality, is chiefly quoted as an evidence of a rise or fall ; while there may be a great fluctuation in the price of low qualities of wheat without so much affecting the other. On referring to the prices-current, I find that the full extent of the de- cline on fine-coloured first-class flour has been from 4s. to 58. per sack of 280 pounds, being, in just proportion to that upon the same class of wheat, say 78. per quarter of 480 pounds ; while upon household flour and Ameri- can barrels the decline has been from 7s. to 8s. per 280 pounds, with a pro- portionate decline on secondary wheats, say 10s. to 12e. per 480 pounds.
P.S.—As regards bakers, there are few trades so much exposed to compe- tition, seeing that every family at a day's notice can enter the lists with the trade, which is the case with no other article in such general use : and as a proof of the bare profits of the baking trade, look to the lists of insolvencies among this class, arising from the fact that this trade requires small capital and is exposed to great competition.
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