WOOLLEN MILLS AND WOOL PROFITS

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 207, 27 May 1920, Page 5

WOOLLEN MILLS AND WOOL PROFITS

Sir-According to the Official Teal Book for. 1919, the quantity of wool, chiefly half-bred and monho, token over for manufacture by our Dominion, woollen mills in 1917-18, is approximately 7-,600,0001b., and, talcing this as a gunoe, their consumption would be about 30,000,0001b. during the four years ol the commandeer, the price paid being only'five-eighths of a penny per lb. over. .the commandeer advance. Tlie=e companies have • benefited very materially by this arrangement, and so far. as I can see the producers' loss of half the profit on 'realisation of. all this fine wool has found its? way into the pockets of their shareholders. My impression is that the owner*. -ot these mills should oven now bo called S to pay these half profits they. have improperly derived under this slipshod arrangement entered into with them during Mr. Massey's absence, and they 'can well,afford to do so, as the official share lists show an enhancement in the selling price of their shares' since _Defembfr, 1910, of no loss than half a million sterling, and this dees not include some of the- larger mills which a'r'e privately owned. , : The producers' representatives, wjio are about to meet in Wellington should Me liote and devise some sensible arrangement for payment of past as well as future 'supplies. An additional ls< «», would not -bo too much .to ask 'them to pay upon tho menno ; and halted wool, anl, R.T. Bd. on the crossbred, and this would amount to oyer a million of money wool growers are justly entitled to from the pollen manufacturers for supplies to date. This is a clear case of robbing Peter, to pay Paul.-I geower>