THE WOOL MARKET

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 136, 6 December 1938, Page 14

THE WOOL MARKET

WELLINGTON SALE FAIR PROSPECTS GENERAL SITUATION "Evening Post," December 6. The first wool sale of the Wellington series will be held at the Town Hall tomorrow when a catalogue of nearly 24.000 bales will be submitted. Buyers who have been valuing 'at the city stores during the past three days will be in full attendance and they represent all consuming countries. The quality of the wool to be offered at the sale is reported to be much more attractive than that received for the first sale in this centre last year, and includes wools of a character not catalogued for the first sales of this season held at Auckland on November 26 and Napier on Friday last. The catalogues to be offered in Wellington tomorrow, in order of sale, are as follows: — Brokers. Bales. Levin and Co., Ltd 7149 Loan and Mercantile 2613 N.Z. Farmers' Distributing 3483 Wright, Stephenson, and Abraham and Williams, Ltd 3179 Dalgety 4486 Murray. Roberts, and Co.. Ltd. 2942 Total 23,852 The catalogue for the next Wellington sale to be held on January 9 is closed at the maximum, 24,000 bales, and the Wellington Wool Brokers' Association has notified growers that wool received in store after noon on Saturday last cannot be offered at the January sale. Experience based on results 01 the recent Auckland and Napier sales indicates a firm wool market but no sensational advances on rates made at those sales for wools more or less identical in description. At those sales Yorkshire and Continental buyers contributed their full support, and the demand was mainly for the coarser wools which comprised the bulk of the offerings, but a large percentage of hogget wool was included in the Napier sale. Lincoln-cross wool. too. was in good demand. Some growers having ideas of values differing from those of buyers at the Auckland sale were loath to meet the market and a fair quantity of wool was passed in. Sellers at the Napier sale were more ready to face the position, with the result that a good clearance was effected and, the wool turned into cash. It was noticed at this sale that buyers operated on strictly fixed limits and it was not often that they exceeded them. ORDERLY OFFERING. The object of the New Zealand Committee —a body representing growers, buyers, and brokers' interests—in fixing 24,000 bales as the limits for catalogues for almost every New Zealand sale for this season is principally to spread the business over a longer period and in some measure to stabilise the market. The carry-over of greasy wool last season at under 29,000 bales .was not unmanageable, but the desideratum is no carry-over at all, a matter entirely in the hands of growers themselves. How prices have varied over recent years may be seen in the following return of bales sold in New Zealand and gross proceeds of wool for the past five years:— year. Bales. Proceeds. Per Ib. £ d. 1933-34 650,688 10,451,565 11.07 1934-35 479,797 4,486,479 6.54 1935-36 756,833 10,083,297 0.13 -1936-37 686,994 15,344,231 15.71 1937-38 629.671 9.027,905 10.04 How important and yet variable the contribution of the wool cheque to the income of the Dominion is is seen in the above retuns (compiled by Dalgety and Co.), showing that last year the wool cheque was over £6,300,000 less than it was for the year before. What it will be when the wool year closes June 30. 1939, no one intimately associated with the industry is prepared to say with certainty. Hope is centred in the market of the moment and that may be described as "firm at current rates." Those rates are not unpayable. The market position might be worse and has been worse than it is for the stronger wools which comprise over 90 per cent, of the New Zealand production. The wool market, in Australia and, London at the present time, is not un-! propitious as the cablegrams intimate I from time to time. After Wellington tomorrow Christchurch holds its first sale of the season on Monday next, also with a catalogue of 24,000 bales. The wool to be sold is reported to be gerferally of high quality, including attractive lines of hogget wool. Included in the Christchurch first catalogue will be some wool held over from sale last season.