INTRODUCTION 
_ This book is built on the results of one of a series of 
investigations by students of Canterbury University 
College whilst proceeding to the M.A. Degree in Eco- 
nomics. Its publication has long been delayed by 
conditions created by the war, and is possible now only 
through the public spirit of the author and the publishers 
who make it available in the hope that it may help to 
form a sound public opinion on an industry which has 
for the last few years been thrust unpleasantly into 
public notice through the shortage of home-grown sup- 
plies of wheat, difficulties of importation, high prices, 
and the inconveniences of government regulation. 
Nearly nine years ago I wrote of a similar investi- 
gation, ‘‘As there is no University Press in New 
Zealand, the Government of the Dominion generously 
undertook to print and publish the essay,* and it is 
hoped that the official interest thus shown ‘ 
will grow and bear fruit in the national endowment of 
research.’’ Since that time there has been much talk 
all the world over of ‘‘national endowment of research,”’ 
but in New Zealand very little practical provision has 
been made, either by pubic institutions or privately, for 
the active encouragement and effective support of 
research in the economic sphere. 
In selecting subjects for economic enquiries, students 
have been encouraged to choose from those presented 
by the primary industries of the Dominion, as these 
provide the great bulk of our wealth and control the 
common welfare. As a recent writer on this country 
has happily observed,j New Zealand is ‘‘a remote 
farm,’’ with pastoral farming in its two main branches 
as its chief economic activity, and agriculture as the 
handmaid to the more profitable sheep-raising and 
dairying. Yet the economic side of the pastoral and 
agricultural industries has not received its due share 
*Course of Prices in New Zealand, by Dr. J. W. McIlraith. 
tJ. B. Condliffe, in The Economic Journal, June, 1919, p. 167. 
