The Evening Star MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1927. THE WOOL INDUSTRY.

Evening Star, Issue 19665, 19 September 1927, Page 6

The Evening Star MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1927. THE WOOL INDUSTRY.

Within the" past week or two wool growers iu parts of the North Island have been urged by Farmers’ Union executives to form a kind of sellers ring to cqmbat the alleged wool buyers’ ring. Tho president of the Poverty Bay Fanners’ Union asserts that the best values arc not procurable at tho wool sales - because the buyers are on more or less confidential terms with one another, and ho appears to believe that true competitive prices will be attained by the growers placing reserves on their offerings. Possibly not so largo a proportion of lots at tho auctions already have reserves placed on them as to justify the practice as being universal, but the frequency with which lots arc passed iu when the market sags and growers and their selling brokers regard tho break in prices as merely temporary, and perhaps not justified, illustrates every now and again its great prevalence. The proposal to bring tbo low vendors who allow their clips to go up for unreserved sale into lino and thus form virtually a selling pool is evidence of the tenacity of tho idea among farmers that they can arbitrarily fix prices for their produce. One would have thought that the recent experience of the Dairy Control Board would have exploded that notion. It ought to bo apparent that vendors can no more fix prices than buyers can, especially in rcsnect of a commodity in such world-wide demand as wool. The only obvious way in which vendors could influence prices in their favor would be by restriction of production, and that is tho very reverse of what New Zealand needs and of what the wool grower himself needs in his own best interests. It should be recognised once and for all what a dangerous recoil attaches to steps taken to antagonise one’s customers.

Very possibly tiro pica that such steps are justifiable as only retaliatory and sell-protectivo arises front a development which was observable at last .season’s wool sales. Apparently there was some understanding among tho Bradford buyers. Their limits bore a curious similarity, hut Bradford is only a section of tho tracks represented on tho buying benches at New Zealand auctions, and if those limits were exceeded some other country secured tho wool. Tho fact of tho matter was that Bradford could simply not afford to pay more than a certain price for its raw material. The difficulties of the textile industry in Yorkshire were appreciated to some extent at tho time, and fairly complete exposure of them is conveyed by a cable in to-day’s issue, it states that, because of had trade due to foreign competition, the Homo woollen industry cannot continue to pay employees on the existing scale of wages. The position is so acute that matters are to be brought to a head and the issue put to tho test. On tho Continent, and particularly in Germany, longer hours are worked in the textile industry, and wages are relatively lower. The Continental countries have their protective tariffs, while Britain clings to Freetrade.- The consequence is that the British market itself is invaded with importations of foreign textiles, principally German, which undersell the British article. Tho extraordinary feature of the situation is that the Home trades union leaders relentlessly oppose the granting of tho protective duties for which the manufacturers have naturally enough asked to prevent these highly undesirable and fundamentally uneconomic importations. Britain needs to bo able to manufacture at least as cheaply as her rivals to retain her own Homo market and her overseas markets also. The trades unions will not allow her to do that; they fight for wages and conditions for operatives which preclude it. In addition they insist on unrestricted foreign competition with a Homo industry thus handicapped lest there be a possible rise in the cost of living, in which clothing is an important, item. Tho result is a swelling of Britain’s imports—in a line which, being one of Britain’s staple manufactures, is unnecessary and absurd—as well as a diminution of British exports. This is a complete inversion of what should bo the case if Britain is to regain her trade position. It is nothing less than economic suicide. It appears to us that there is great danger of Britain losing far more trade through Her retention of her Freetrade policy than she is likely, to gain through her overseas dominions granting preference to British goods, largely at the instance of' representations made by leaders in the political and trading circles of Britain. It has recently been stated in a number of quarters, particularly by those leaders of Labor-in Britain who oppose Communism and the Moscow influence, that the British working man has at length been convinced of the folly of extreme demands over tho division of the proceeds of industry, and of striking when these arc not conceded., It is sincerely to be 'hoped that in this case Labor will clearly recognise the plight and pros-

pects of a most important industry and the basic facts underlying them. In tin meantime the bare possibility of an upheaval in the Homo textile industry on tho evo of tho opening of tho woolselling season must bo unwelcome to the wool growers of Australia and New Zealand.