The Chronicle. PUBLISHED DAILY FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 1911.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 20 January 1911, Page 2

The Chronicle. PUBLISHED DAILY FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 1911.

THE LONDON WOOL SALES. At first sight, tilio decline of 5 to 7 per cent in wool values which was recorded at yesterday's wool sales in. London seems cause for regret. i But- this apparent reason for regret is not as firmly based .as at first .sight it appears to be. Woo], in fact, lias been at abnormal prices for two years paslt, and the slight check to these rising values which ihas come about this year may have the effect of putting a stop to the high soaring land va.lues for agricultural and pastoral farms which have been hampering the country's progress for a good while. That high prices of land should prevail while our staple products of wool, moat, and dairy 'butter, are so extremely dear is 'but a natural corollary; hut the results are not for the public good, so far as we read the signs and consequences aright. Even while prices of .farm produce remain at a higib level, the necessity that the newer farmers are under of finding high rents or excessive mortgage principal charges every year have an after, math which causes tradespeople and others to be kepti short of degrees of patronage which otherwise would come to them; and, in sum total, in an all-round curtailment of the genoral farmers' spending power. Should prices of our staple products decline suddenly these- troubles would become accentuated tenfold, and. the detrimental sequences would he experienced in at least equal degree by all classes of the community. The drop of 5 ito 7 per cent in wool values, therefore, may prove to he a beneficent discipline- for all classes of the community of New Zealand,' acting—as it is sure to do—as a steadier to the rasher spirits who would force- up land values to a point whereat rational increase gives place to speculative rashness.