The Wool Market.

Feilding Star, Volume XVII, Issue 99, 23 October 1895, Page 2

The Wool Market.

CAUSE OF THE RISE IN PRICES. In connection with the great improvement which has taken place in the price of wool, the following report of an interview between the London correspondent of the Auckland Weekly News and a Yorkshire manufacturer will be interesting to wool growers : — In reply to my question as to what had caused this sudden improvement, my friend said it was due to a variety of causes. One of these was the exhaustion of the heavy stocks laid in by manufacturers at the time that prices were so low. " I myself," he said, •* strongly urged my own firm to purchase as largely as possible while prices remained so low, because I felt convinced that a reaction was only a question of time. In the end they agreed, and w,e bought every pound of wool we could possibly manage to stow away. We got store rooms wherever we could, and filled every corner with supplies of wool. I have reason to know that other manufacturers did the same. But now all these supplies have been practically worked out, and so the manufacturers have to buy in the market on the best terms they can. Another reason," he continued, " is the greatly extended use of woollen materials that has come about of late. The rich alpacas and lustres that ladies have worn so largely this summer have created almost a new trade of themselves, and then there are numerous other attractive woollen materials which have come into much favor ; serges and tweeds are more and more extensively worn, and various makes of wool have widely replaced linen and cotton stuffs for under garments. In fact, in many directions there seems a tendency for wool to displace almost every other material in regard to wearing apparel, whether for the outer clothing or for the inner wear. This extension of the use of wool began with the upper classes who had learned from their medical advisers aud scientific books its superiority to any other material. Thus the Jaeger clothing and other makes of similar character are worn to an enormous extent nowaday. " The new fashion," he went on to say, " of exclusively wearing wool has extended itself downward, and the great body of the middle class have adopted it. Further, the working class are rapidly awakening to its many advantages, and are steadily taking to the use of garments made of wool in place cf the less healthy clothing of cotton and linen, which that class as a rule so much affected. Of cause the extensively low prices of wool and its manufactures which have prevailed so long have had a great deal to do with popularising its use. People who could not have afforded to buy woollen clothing at the old price have been induced to try it when they could purchase it at so cheap a rate, and arc now finding the benefit of the change. They will assuredly continue it to the utmost extent of their means. And tben so many ways of making up woollen goods at a low cost have been discovered, that there is every reason to hope that the enlarged consumption of wool which has now set in will not only continue, butincrease. My own opinion," he concluded, " is that a long period of good prices for wool has now set in. I believe the tendency will be to rise during the winter, and I fully anticipate the rise being maintained." (Pee Press Association). Sydney, October 22. At the wool sales there is a markedly weaker tone for lower classes, which have sold fully ?d lower. The best descriptions, however, have suffered little if any decline on last week's prices, and competition continues good.