The Price of Wool.

Feilding Star, Volume XVII, Issue 224, 25 March 1896, Page 2

The Price of Wool.

Few people find pleasure in surveying acres of numerals, but the figures relating to wool, the staple product of Australasia, have a peculiar charm for the average colonist, and a retrospect of the wool trade will, we are sure, prove interesting. It will surprise most of our settlers to learn that tbe average value of a bale of wool in the London market was last year £11, the lowest on record, notwithstanding that during the year there was some improvement in the prices realised, more particularly in the second half ot tbe year. This is accounted for by the fact that there were very heavy stocks of wool and tops in the hands of European holders, while the cheap direct colonial purchases were re-sold in Europe at a minimum of profit, and along with the old stock, which had to be worked off ; the level of prices was thus kept low. During the past 3;" i years the average value of a bale of wool was at its highest in 1872, when it was returned at £26 10, or, to put it in another form, it took nearly 2_ bale* of wool in 1895 to realise as muchas a single bale did in 1872. Taking quinquennial periods from 1861 , and dealing with Australasian wool exported to Europe and America we get the following interesting table : — Quinqucn- Total Average Total nial Bales Value Value. Period. Exported, per Bale.

Comparing the last quinquennial period with the first, it will be seen that while the number of bales exported in 189V95 was nearly seven times as great as the figures for 1861-65, the total value was only slightly more than three times as much. Had the average of prices remained tbe same for the two periods, the money value of the shipments for the last quinquennial period would bave amounted to £215,965,000, as agcinst £110,280,000 as shown in tbe above table, a difference of £105,685,000— a sum sufficient to wipe out about half the public indebtedness of the whole of the colonies in Australasia. The enormous increase in the production of wool in these colonies will be readily seen by comparing the total exports for the first and and last quinquennial periods under review, thus :

Average value Year. Bales. Per Bale. 1861 212,000 J223£ 1862 227,000 £22% 1863 242,000 £22% 1864 302,000 £24* 1865 334,000 £23J 1891 1.683,000 £13* 1892 1.835,000 £12 1893 1,775,000 £12£ 1594 1,896.000 £11£ 1895 2,001,000 _211 —Post.

£ £ 1861-65 1,319,000 23£ 30,966,500 1866-70 2,298,000 19} 44,236,500 1870-75 3,077,000 231- 71,540,250 1876-80 4,100,000 18£ 75,850,000 1881-85 5,210,000 10| 84,662,500 1886 90 6,514,000 14 J , 92,824,500 1891-95 9,190,000 12 110,280,000