THE LONDON WOOL MARKET.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4384, 8 April 1875, Page 3

THE LONDON WOOL MARKET.

(From the Melbourne Aryus, March 25.)

Our correspondent “ Wool Grower,” whose letter we publish in our present issue, calls attention to what appears to have been a strange departure from, the ordinary course of business. He states that last month’s public wool sales in London, for which there were 200,000 bales in hand, were postponed for a fortnight to admit of 70,000 bales, then expected to arrive, being included in the catalogue, and that the owners of the 200,000 bales suffered loss in conseciuence of this postponement to the extent of IJd. per lb. on their produce. If this loss really accrued, the owners of the wool, directly, and the commerce of the colony indirectly, suffered to the amount of upwards of £300,000 ; but so much can scarcely he established, since it is impossible to determine how much of the fall in price that occurred between the date at which the February sale should have commenced, and the date at which it actually commenced, was due to the postponement thus referred to. But it is certain that the owners of the 200,000 bales suffered some loss. To increase the supply of a commodity by 40 per cent, must neccessarily lower its market value, anil to the extent which the 70.000 bales of wool for which the February sales were put off affected the price realised at the deferred sale, by so much did the owners of the 200.000 bales which were already in store when the sale should have come off suffer injury. Their loss may have been much or little—the extent of it is not an important feature in the case. The question is, whether any body of men should be permitted to exercise the despotic control over the London wool market which is at present exercised by the committee which our correspondent describes ?

We think no such control should be exercised. The committee, like other similar associations that existed before it—and there has always been some kind of serai-public body in London to take the management of Australian wool out of the hands of its owners—takes upon itself to rcyulatc the market, which simply means to so arrange the sales that there shall be approximately even prices the year through. This is what regulating the market means when the process is performed fairly and honestly, but the system is obviously open to gross abuse. That it is abused we do not say, but important business transactions should be so conducted as to render fraud impossible. Taking it for granted, however, that the. London committee of importing merchants honestly manage the wool sales in the manner which they deem most conducive to the interests of the wool - growers as n body, it by no means follows that this is at the same time fair to wool-growers as individuals. The producer who happens to have wool in a London warehouse at a time when exceptionally high prices rule, has a right to reap the advantage which the condition of the market puts in his way. He may have the luck one year to arrive in London with his clip when the market is bare, and another year he may have to add his quota to a market already overstocked. That is his chance, and when the worse fortune happens to him, it is for him to say whether he will keep back his produce till prices improve. That is altogether his own affair, or his agent’s. London merchants, or agents, or brokers, have nothing, whatever 'to do with it, and it seems to be beyond their province to decide whether wool shall be sold this week or the next, or the next again. Sellers have an indubitable right to expose their goods when and how they please, and if any association of intending sellers or buyers attempts to regulate the sale in accordance with the wishes or interests of its members, the association must submit to disappoint: ment. There is not, and cannot be, ultimately, any disparity between the views of honest Melbourne wool merchants, and Sydney wool merchants, and London wool merchants, and the better all these understand each other, the better will it be for all concerned. Another cause of complaint which the Australian wool producer has, is the difficulties which the London wool merchant puts in the way of his exposing his produce in the now salerooms at the Millwall and East and West India Docks. So far as our information extends, the accommodation afforded at these establishments is very superior to what is afforded at the up-town warehouses, but, nevertheless, the older establishments use all their influence to prevent the newer from coming into full operation. A communication on this subject has been published in the Sydney Motjiiny Jlemkl, which aroused a good deal of interest among the wool-growers of Victoria and Hiverina. It consisted mainly of a letter from a London warehousing firm, which endeavored to show that the prevailing system^of Australian wool sales was as nearly as possible perfect, and that the new wool warehouses were quite a mistake. This the Australian wool-growers altogether refuse to believe. Their “ account sales’,’ satisfy them that the new wool warehouses, and the improved method of managing the wool sales wliich they have contrived to introduce, are a great gain to themselves, and they are not likely to give a favorable oar to representations which their own business experience flatly contradicts. We do not attempt to discuss, Ibis question of the London wool sales exhaustively. It is a subject wliich the Australian wool _ producer should argue on his own behalf. He is capable enough, or rich enough, to maintain his own cause or have it maintained for him, if only ho will take the trouble or go to the expense of standing up for his just rights. With the most valuable Australian interest to maintain, the Australian woolgrower has always been about the most supine and least public-spirited

member of our community, and except that he generally comes to us when the English mail is about to be made up, to ask us to do something on his behalf, he is never known to depart by ever so slight a degree from the path by which his individual advantage is most surely and quickly to be attained. Why is not there an Australian association to watch over the interests of Australian woolgrowers ? If there was such a body, it would save us a great deal of trouble. We take no special interest in the woolgrowers of the colony, who are generally very well off, but when it is shown to ns that they are being badly used we are, of course, bound to stand up for them, as we would for any other oppressed class ; but a wealthy and move or less intelligent body like oar squatters should always be in a position to lay lance in rest on their own behalf. We have no other interest in advocating their cause except in so far as it is to the advantage of the public that Australian produce should be sold at its true value, and it is chiefly with a view to this end that we so often discuss the subject of the London wool sales when an Australian mail is being made up for Great Britain.