Wool Exports to the Continent.

Gisborne Times, Volume IX, Issue 919, 18 June 1903, Page 4

Wool Exports to the Continent.

Christchurch business men are rather puzzled about the Sydney cable message of Friday regarding the possibility of foreign wool buyers doing business direct with New Zealand owing to the increasing demand on the Contient for New Zealand crossbred wools, with the additional chance of a Continental line of ,steamers including this colony in its itinerary. One gentleman, on being interviewed, remarked that the present was not a time when any line would he likely to put additional steamers into the New Zealand trade, seeing that the steamers already embarked on that trade arc at present unable to find full cargoes Indeed, he said it is likely that during the next four or live months several of the large direct steamers will he compelled to he laid up in the colony owing to the entire absence of cargo. Referring to the statement made regarding the increasing demand on (lie Continent, for New Zealand crossbred wools, he said there was no recognised market on the Continent for New Zealand wool. It would lie necessary for Continental buyers to purchase the wool in the New Zealand market before it could he shipped to the Continent. It was hardly likely that colonial buyers would consign woo! to a Continental port, as there would he uncertainty as to the state of the market when the wool reached it. The London market had been the market, to which all New Zealand wool had hitherto gone, and it was the recognised point to which intending buyers went to obtain their supplies. Mr E. G. Staveley, manager of the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agcny Company, spoke to much the same cflect. If an increasing demand for New Zealand crossbred wools existed on the part of Continental buyers, he was not aware of it. He did not think the proposal io ship direct tc the Continent would come to much, because the proportion of wool bought in the colony for Contin'.'ntal purposes was not very large, and certainly not sufficiently large to warrant the establishment of a direct trade. Incidentally the question , of local freight, was brought up by another business man, who said that it a line of steamers came to Ibis colony; they would probably have only one port to call, and if coastal freight had to he paid—say, from Port Chalmers or from Lyttelton—to Wellington, it would he found as cheap, if'not. cheaper, to ship the wool to London and tranship it from (here Io the Continent. At piesent, it costs almost as much to ship wool from Fori Chalmers or Lyttelton to Wellington as Io ship it from London to Continental ports. For 2s per hale extra, wool is at present, conveyed from New Zealand to Continental ports, whilst the cost of shipment between Lyttelton or Port, dial liters and Wellington is between 3s and Is per hale.