The Farmer and the Loaf The Wheat Quota Act, when
it becomes an Act, may benefit the farmers' pockets, but it will certainly agitate their brains, judging by the text of the Bill that has just been published. The salient fact is that the guaranteed price is to be 45s. a quarter against a present market price of about 30s., or a subsidy of roughly 50 per cent., and that the difference between the market price and the 45s. is to be found by the millers, who will no doubt recoup themselves at the expense of the baker, who will no doubt recoup himself at the expense of the consumer. There is to be a Wheat Commission, representing trade interests, to administer the scheme as a whole, and a Flour-Millers' Corporation to handle any wheat within the annual quota (not to exceed 6,000,000 qrs.) not sold in the ordinary way of business by the end of the cereal year. Farmers will have to keep books for inspection by the Wheat Commission and an elaborate system of licences and certificates is to be instituted. The net effect of the Bill is that the wheat-grower gets a subsidy which the-Govern- ment will not pay, but the consumer inevitably will. The largest consumers of bread proportionately consist of those sections of the community least able to pay anything at all. * * * *
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