OUR WOOL LOSSES

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 104, 27 January 1920, Page 10

OUR WOOL LOSSES

(To the Editor.) Sir,—The reported profiteering in wool and startlini; revelations from London aro nothing new, os attention has been frequently drawn to them in your widelyread paper and efforts made to get Mr. Massey or Sir Joseph Ward or -rome other capable person in authority to revise the wool commandeering cablegrams and correspondence and put the proper construction upon them. As has been pointed out the "pre-war price" of any article is its selling price in the principal consuming market, less freight and shipping charges, which then amounted to about one penny farthing per lb. Fanners' parcels of mixed wools, with bellies and pieces, netted in London in July, IBM, when war was declared, about Is. Id. to 1?. 2d. per lb., and it is manifest that (he 'Wool Commissioner liad this figure in his mind's eye. when lie dispatched his cable in November or December, 1010, commandeering all our wool and offering 45 per cent, over prewar, prices for it, which will be found to represent approximately tho increase in value between July, 10U. and December, 191G, when the commandeer was effected. •

Our basic "pre-war price" has been arrived nt bv adopting the Dominion i-ell-ing price of about half the 1!)M4 dip exposed for sale at auction nt the local wool sales betivcsn November or December, lillfl, and .Tanuary-li'ebruary, I9H, about six to eight, months before war was declared, the resultant net figure, as Jlr. Mnssc.v bas told us, being SJd. per lb. as ugains't Is. Id. to I,«. 2d. per lb. for tiia other half of the clip sent Home through tiu banks for sale. About one penny per !I>. was added to this Dominion net price of 81(1. per lb., making it B.liad., u|Mii which, with it) per cent, added, payment has been made for the last iiur clips. The shortage in our payments for wool on this side, apart from the enormous increase in price which has taken place since the date of the commandeer, is therefore fivepenco farthing per lb., or tlio difference between fourteenpence plus 45 per cent, and ninepence decimal sixty-live plus r>s per cent., our late Act-ing-Prime Minister, who was in charge at the time, having submitted as a counter offer 55 per cent, over his fictitious pre-war price of Mod. As, however, the owners of slipe wool, who are more astute than the fanners, succeeded in effecting an amendment in the terms of Ihe commandeer and 'are being paid 55 per cent over pre-war London prices, less one penny farthing per lb. for freight and other shipping charges, it is justly'contended that these same terms should bo granted to owners of greasy wool taken delivery of under the same commaadecr.

In that case the short payment, to farmers under the commandeer represents about sixpence, three-farthings per lb., and has liwn computed to amount to about fcven and a half million pounds sterling or, say, thirty millions sterling for the four clips eo commandeered, As tli<! startling increase which lias taken plnce in the tolling price of our wool sincj (he commencement of the coninruideer is not taken into consideration in ih-> above calculation and as a nrenv ;><.v lb. <>n our iotnl clip represents jV.ti--.tii- or.e million sterling, vour readers will be able to arrive at some idea of thr, enormous sacrifices our farmers have been called upon by our politicians to make, as compared ivilh producers ut Home and elsewhere, wiio have all along and during the war been obtaining market priees'for their nroduce. It will now be feen that farmers, representing about half the IIH.I-M clip, who have consistently .shipped Ibeir wool to for sale, have received 55 per cent, on pre-war prices, and some have nelled le.« even than in IAH. while the increase of I'OO and Wfl per cent, on many articles they r«|iiiro and consume bus fallen upon' them as well as upon the rdieep-sheiu-rr, the sluugliternmil and cgrieultural labourer, as well as other employes who derive the greater part of iho'ir living from tlio operations of the primary producer and whom the Arbitration Court is treating so tenderly and sympathetically. Newspapers at Home tell 11s that Hie Australian mid New '/ienlund /armors have made more sacrifices during the war than any other'person and that, they are not so prosperous as outsiders are led to believe, end Ihey are ri--.it. and lens of thousands can confirm it.—l am, CIC " PRIMARY PRODUCER.