WOOL VALUATION

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 271, 5 August 1918, Page 6

WOOL VALUATION

. q THE SEEDY WOOL" QUESTION. Evor since the wool requisition scheme camo into operation farmers have been dissatisfied with the prices allowed for inferior and seedy wool by the valuers. Speakers at tho deputation of the Farmers' Union whicb waited on the Minister in Charge of Imperial Supplies (the Hon. D. H. Guthrie) on Saturday made bitter complaint about the prices allowed for theso classes of wool. It was stated that it was waste of money for a farmer to pay for a revaluation of wool, and yet tho prices allowed spelt ruin to many farmers. It was suggested that if a farmer were not satisfied with the prico allowed to him ho should havo the right to sond his wool Homo on to tho open market. The statement had previously been made by Mr. Massoy that if an owner of wool were not satisfied with tho price fixed he could havo the option of holding tho wool, but not of exporting it on his own account. It was stated by Mr. Lysnar that this was not generally known, and that indeed ono of tho owners on whoso case tho complaint had beon based had wished to hold his wool, but had been denied tho opportunity of withdrawing it from sale. Mr. Guthrie said thai: he knew that tho valuations had been disappointing to many farmers. He was at a loss to understand why so littlo attention was paid to 6eedy and inferior wool now, when there was not so much objection to it before. He thought that one of tho reasons was that 6eedy wool had not the samo value nowadays, and it was not looked upon as satisfactory in these times. All our carbonising plants for dealing with the wool had gone. The matter had been brought under his notice some time ago, and it was one of the matters on which he was still in communication with Mr>Massey. It.might interest the members of the deputation, lie said, to hear tha'. there was a New Zealand compauy experimenting with a process for tho cleaning of 6eedy wool. The owners of tho process were prepared to give an exhibition of their methods before any committee, to show that they could clean seed from wool. The matter was at present before the New Zealand Government, and the rights of the invention had been offered to tho Government. He might say that his recommendation to the Government, as a man not an expert in wool business, was that if it would do what it had appeared to' him to do it would be one of the most valuable inventions that had ever been made in the country. Tho question was a serious one because of the extent to which the biddy-bid burr was spreading. 'This increased enormously the amount of seedy wool coming into the market. Ho hoped that the invention would be ns good as it promised to be, for it would be a boon to the producers of wool in tho rougher parts of'tbe country where the biddy-bid was now established.