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(h) Administration Costs The over-all administration costs of the Wheat Committee totalled £48,103, apportioned as under : (a) Wheat administration costs, covering the purchase and sale of all New Zealand and imported wheat, £11,890, or 0-292 per cent, of wheat turnover of £4,070,187. (b) Flour administration costs, covering all the charges arising from collecting orders, ordering out from the mills, invoicing, collecting accounts, paying proceeds to mills, acceptance on our part of the del credere risk, and including a commission of 2-155 per cent, paid to merchant-agents handling flour in localities where there are no Wheat Committee branch offices, £36,213, or 1-257 per cent, of the flour turnover of £2,880,360. This percentage was 0-075 per cent, less than in 1947-48, but it remained slightly in excess of the 1 -25 per cent, commission paid by millers to the Wheat Committee for this work. Bad debts written off, less recoveries of amounts written off in previous years, amounted to £53 16s. 3d., which was again a most satisfactory result. (*) Subsidies Paid to Stabilize Prices Subsidy payments through the Wheat Committee on wheat, flour, bran, and pollard handled amounted to £1,488,951 for the year ended 31st January, 1949. Payments for the previous year were £1,496,452. (j) Removal of Subsidy from Feed Wheat, Bran, and Pollard As from 22nd January, 1949, prices charged by the Committee for feed wheat, bran, and pollard were increased by 2s. 9d. per bushel for feed wheat and by approximately £3 per ton for bran and pollard. These changes have the effect of reducing subsidy payments accordingly, and at the request of the New Zealand Poultry Board were extended to apply in respect of eggs. The Committee's new prices for feed wheat supplied to merchants became as under : New-Zealand-grown wheat—South Island : Bs. 6d. per bushel, March basis, f.o.b. grower's nearest port, sacks extra, plus brokers' commission. To this basic price is added increments of Id. per bushel per month of delivery, May, June, July, and |d.. per bushel per month for August, September. Australian wheat —North Island : 9s. Id. per bushel, c.i.f., sacks extra. (k) Bread-baking Industry On 31st January, 1949, 526 bread-baking units were operating, compared with "538 at 31st January, 1948. On the basis of population at 31st December, 1948 (1,861,714), the proportion of bread bakeries was one for 3,530 persons. The quantity of flour delivered to bread-bakers and bread-pastrycooks for the year ended 31st January, 1949, amounted to 110,533 tons, as compared with 109,670 tons for the year ended 31st January, 1948, an increase of 863 tons. Allowing for the proportion of flour used by bread-bakers in the manufacture of pastrycook lines, it is estimated that 105,000 tons of flour were used for bread-baking during the year ended 31st January, 1949.

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