M. W. WOODFIELD.]

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tion and Mr. Buchanan waited upon us and asked us to become members of the Bakers' Association, and to charge 6d. per 4 lb. loaf cash or booked. We never took up a position of that sort because our trade is a cash trade, and we reckon that you cannot beat encouraging a cash trade. Therefore, we say we give people the benefit of aloaf, and our price is 5Jd. paid at the end of a week, or 6d. if booked. The baker's price was 6d. delivered irrespective of cash. 150. That is a cardinal feature, and you reckon it is worth £d. a loaf to you?— Yes. 151. Can you show the Committee by the balance-sheet how it worked out to you ?—Yes, when I go back. 152. How many loaves do you get out of a 200 lb. bag of flour?— That is just according to your bakers and according to your flour. The Californian flour will probably make you seventy-two loaves if you have a good baker ; if not, it will only be sixty-eight. 153. Your whole business has shown a loss during the last twelve months ?—That is after paying all interest on our capital. 154. That is the ordinary course ?—Yes. 155. Taking it all over has it not worked out at over £400 loss ? You have paid a bonus out of previous earnings to your customers? —That balance-sheet is for the half-year ending the 30th June, 1903, and it shows a profit of £3 9s. lOd. 156. It shows that £3 9s. lOd. on the revenue account, but coming to the profit and loss account you show bonuses on members' purchases, £172 15s. ;on wages, £20 17s. 4d.; on non-members' purchases, £11 ss. 4d. You had brought forward from the previous half-year £452 7s. 10d., which enabled you to pay these bonuses on the current half-year out of the previous half-year's profits? —But it is not all brought forward. 157. But £452 is brought forward, and you spent £204 on bonuses, so if you had charged that to the previous half-year you would have been to the bad?— Yes ; but that is never done. 158. Mr. Aitken.] You stated that you charged s£d. cash for your bread, and 6d. if booked: do you not book weekly accounts ? —Yes. 159. Have you not as much trouble in booking weekly accounts as monthly accounts ?—There is more trouble in a way, but if you give an encouragement of £d. in 6d. your customers are encouraged to pay, and we find it a very good inducement. 160. It is a discount for prompt payment, not for cash ? —We look upon it as cash ; they may look upon it as discount. 161. The Chairman.] Which department would pay 10 per cent. ?—Drapery. 162. And the grocery showed a loss, I understood you to say ?—Yes, that half-year. 163. Did you expect to attract custom by selling bread at 5Jd., or did it pay you to sell at s£d. ? —We reckoned it paid us at s|d. 164. You said that the bakery will pay you better than the grocery ?—lt will when established. 165. Then, you say the grocery shows a loss?— Yes, it may do for one period. 166. But you think, taking it altogether, that if you get cash you can afford to sell bread at s*d. ?—Yes. 167. Do you think the Flour-millers' Association charge more for their flour than they ought to charge, or do you think it a reasonable price considering the price of wheat? —That is the point; but that did not interest me so much as getting the flour. 168. What we want to get out is what tbe association has been doing to the public; do you think the association has been charging too much ? —I think the association was charging sufficient at the time, and probably in excess; but it was not concerning me at all how they bought their wheat. That was a matter for their buyers. 169. You think they were charging a little more than they should have done, or would you rather not express an opinion on that ?—I would rather say they were charging sufficient, and a little more. 170. How did the association's charges correspond with the prices you had to pay to the outside free mills ?—All the outside mills quoted association rates, but when you took the quality of the flour outside it would not be so good as that coming through the proper channel, and that is how I account for the loss. But for that there would not have been a loss on the bakery. 171. It cost your society more because you could not get the flour through the association ?—Yes. 172. Mr. Laurenson.] Did the Bakers' Association ever ask you to join them ?—Yes; Mr. Blake, the president, waited upon me, and invited us to become members. He waited on me with Mr. Buchanan, who was its secretary. 173. Mr. Loughnan.] At the period of these letters —in October—you were buying largely from the association. In that month of October, 1902, you purchased to the value of £180 15s. 3d. That was the largest item until February of the next year, when it reached £183. The only time when that amount was increased was in July, when it reached £183 ; and last month your orders amounted to £266. Consequently when you wrote that letter in October you had one of your largest month's orders supplied?— But is that just the bakery, or does it include the whole of the business. 174. That is the total : you do not suggest that you bought a hundred and eighty pounds' worth of small bags ?—I do not know what we had bought from memory. We have often bought flour and sold it again. 175. Does it not strike you as significant that you broke all previous records in that month— that you only exceeded that record in three months long after? —We go in for buying and selling if we see a chance of making a pound or two. 176. It does not matter to the association, but the fact is that you bought it. The fact is that you say that at that time you say you could not buy from the association, and I have pointed out that you had your biggest sale during that month, barring two or three subsequent months ?—I did