WOOL PROFITEERING

Hokitika Guardian, 22 January 1920, Page 1

WOOL PROFITEERING

SENSATIONAL REVELATIONS,

ißy Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) | AUSTRALIAN & N.Z. OaULE ASSOCIATION] LONDON, Jan. 20. There are some sensational revelations now being made in regard to the incredible amount of profiteering that lias been going on in the wool business in Britain, and which still continues.

The “Times” states that “the extraordinary disclosures as to the v, 00l profits now being made startled a meeting of the Central Profiteering Committee.”

Mr Mackinder, a Yorkshire Warehouseman, reporting to the Committee upon the results of an official sub-com-mittee's investigations into the cost of the standard “counts” of yarn, said:— The profit that is now being made ringed from four hundred to the three thousand per cent beyond the War offices former allowance for"profits.” The wool spinning firms own figures were quoted by Mr Mackinder in every instance.

Mr Sydney Webb, the well-known Socialist economist commented at the committee meeting on the unpublished Report of the Worsted Committee. He said:—“lt was common talk that the Yorkshire spinners arc making thousands per cent profits. When the public knew the results of the accountants’ investigations of the books of spinners and other sections of the trade there will he a violent expression of indignation.

ENORMOUS PROFITS. LONDON, Jan. 20. There is widespread comment upon the fact of its having been disclosed before the Central Profiteering Committee that the profit made on West Riding wool, over and above the fair margin fixed by the War Office, varies from four hundred to 3200 per cent.

It is alleged that the Government are also making colossal profits. One committeeman who has participated in the wool investigation, deplored the Board of Trades failure to publish sectional reports. ’Mr Sydney Webb said:—“When the public learn the facts, there will be a howl of execration. What is happening with worsted yarn is also happening with cotton and with metals. The sub-committee has reported that there is no evidence available of the trust profiteering in fish and tobacco.

MANY MILLIONS OF PROFIT. LONDON, .Tan. 20. The question of the wool profiteering continues to excite great interest. The Profiteering Committee on Trusts are now considering the question of publication of the reports thereon. Meanwhile the Director General of Raw Materials officially admits that the Government is selling wool from Australia and New Zealand at profits running into many millions of pounds sterling. Tt is said that the Government are selling the better qualities at prices very much higher than the prices fixed in the Dominions’ contracts; but. the Dominions understood that this was to be done after the war, and that they would receive half the profits made. The Director declares that as regards the wool supply, Australasia helped more than any other countries during the war. TheiL he asserts, they made practically no profits. He even went on to emphasise that farmers at present in Australia and New Zealand were not doing so well as the farmers in Britain, South Africa, and India, who were obtaining the top market price without sharing the big profits made with the British Government. Moreover, be compared the situation with cotton, pointing out that Egyptian cotton has risen by from twenty-seven pence to" sixty pence per pound, and tbe Egyptian producers are securing tbe whole profit. He declared tbe Government to be committing a great breach of faith, unless the wool growers in Australasia now got the benefit of the big rise in prices.

A GRAVE SCANDAL. LONDON, Jan. 20. At a meeting of the Standing Committee on Trusts the wool scandal has been further discussed. The meeting unanimously favoured publication of tile report regarding the wool profiteering, yet there is delay the Committee saying it is awaiting a decision by the Hoard of Trade. There is now a threat by the Labour. Members of the Trusts Committee to suspend work until the publication of the wool report. The Committee resolved to-day that the publication of any “partial or revised reports would be wholly unsatisfactory.” The Committee thus presses for a prompt publication of the report as submitted to the Board of Trade.