WOOL MARKET

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 14, 17 January 1924, Page 8

WOOL MARKET

HIGH PRICES OBTAINED

SALES CLOSE „ VERY FIRM.

.- The third' Wellington' sale of the cur- \ rent wool' season was; concluded yesterday afternoon, with ,a clearance of catalogues to the extent of fully 95* per cent. The retu'riis to grower's will no doiibt be regarded'- by them', as eminently satisfactory.; The,sale, was regarded as, oiie'; of /thVmost important ever.held in,the Dominion so'far as the. representative cluii.acter of the buying "was concerned.- The ■benches were full, and every great consuming _ centre was represented. There never is much merino sent into the North Island sales, but what there' was -<S>mmanded from 26d- to 33d per pound ,'Tha greater part of an average Weliihg•ton catalogue consists of medium, to low crossbreds,' and these may be considered our'; local bread-and-butter -lines. Such wools, showed advances of from Id to ,2id per pound up on last December rates. At 2d,, per pound advance, this represents roughly £3 'per bale more than such wool brought" at the sales last month. The good .prices' realised then and the improvement .of trie market" generally since induced some growers/ to expect more, and so a few lots in'each catalogue were passed in. There is still wool enough in Wellington to hold another big sale to-day, but the nextoffering is arranged for 20th' February. The market may hold, may even be 'better by then, than it is .to-day, but ' the current rates are generally up to the Imperial purchase average. In any case, the sales held here on Tuesday and yesterday will be the means of putting into circulation, through the wool grower, of a very substantial sum of ready money. Incidentally, the attention of the Di-rector-General of . Agriculture (Dr. Reakes) has.been called to the fact that there appeared in one of the Wellington papers of Monday last a telegram from London dated 12th January, in which it was stated that the'quantity of Bawra wool in slock and afloat at the end of tho year was ;913,215* bales. "As this is an important misstatement of the actual position,'" writes the Di-rector-General,. "I shall be glad if you Will call attention to the fact that at the end of December last the total Bawra stocks, of wool were 162,000 bales of Australian' and'47,ooo of New Zealand." The reports of.individual "brokers and some of the prices realised are as under: