156 WHEAT PRODUCTION IN NEW ZEALAND 
weather simultaneously, for the wheat crop may not yet 
have reached maturity there. These considerations are 
strongly in favour of adopting the @ priori conclusion 
that factors operating from the supply side tend to 
promote price steadiness. 
The inelasticity* of demand for food-stuffs applies to 
the demand for wheat. Variations in price are not 
followed by variations in consumption of corresponding 
magnitude. It is true that in rye-consuming countries, 
such as Germany, where the taste for rye-bread is 
sufficiently strong to combat the forces tending to 
promote the universal consumption of wheat-bread, a rise 
in the price of wheat will be followed by the substitution 
of rye-bread for wheat-bread wherever it is possible. It 
is also true that in countries which consume wheat-bread 
only, economy in the use of bread (much of which is now 
wasted in New Zealand) will be practised should price 
rise. That such was the case in New Zealand after 
the rise in the price of wheat at the close of 1914, 
was indicated by communications to the Press at the 
beginning of the year, and the general complaints of 
bakers of a fall in consumption. But, despite the action 
of these two forces, the demand for wheat is fairly 
inelastic, and the general tendency of factors operating 
from the demand side is to promote price steadiness. 
That supplies are forthcoming with some degree of 
regularity over long periods, is shown by a table giving 
the European Weekly Distribution or Deliveries to 
Consumption of Imported Wheat. The table is taken 
from The Corn Trade News, of June 9th, 1914, and 
shows the rate of weekly consumption (or distribution 
from -merchants’ hands) of imported wheat over the 
several months from August 1907 to May 1914. 
*By inelasticity of demand is meant the quality a commodity 
possesses of retaining a fairly constant demand in all price 
changes. 
