PRICES OF WOOL.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXII, Issue 4298, 1 August 1921, Page 1

PRICES OF WOOL.

Some people appear to be able to find happiness in their misery—a peculiar construction of the mental organs being perhaps the cause of the force of habit, any departure from which violates a conception than which nothing better is conceivable. We are led to .think in this strain, states the Opotiki “Herald,” by reason of an experience brought before our notice l the other day by a wellknown settler in these parts. This farmer has of recent years had comparatively little tp do with sheep, and his annual shipments of wool during the past few years have averaged five bales, which realised between £l5O and £l6O. This year’s consignment, however, has not turned out so well, in fact it has resulted in what he was pleased to term “a huge joke.” His wool was put up for sale on two occasion's ; the first time it w r as not sold, and the second time, wheji i. was cleared, the price was so munificent that he was enabled, to pocket , a cheque for £lB for the five bales. The funny part of .the business was, he stated, that when the wool was not sold a sum of 14s was charged for putting it up, while when it was actually disposed of the commission charged only amounted to Ils 2d. A still' funnier light was thrown on the episode by the fact that he had just speculated in a suit of clothes which cost him £l7 10s. The weight of his wool was 23001 b, and if we allow a liberal quantity, say, 101 b, for the material, he had disposed of sufficient wool to make 230 suits, and yet his total receipts only equalled the cost

of one suit. Many of us, no doubt, have been under .the impression that the farmers have been having a particularly rosy time at? the expense of the rest of N.ew Zealand, but the foregoing facts—and we believe they are facts —go to show that somebody else is annexing more than a fair whack of the profits.