MISTAKEN IDEAS ABOUT WOOL.

Shannon News, 19 July 1921, Page 3

MISTAKEN IDEAS ABOUT WOOL.

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—ln that most familiar term, “all wool,” is summed up, in just four letters of the alphabet, the -great climax which to-day staggers this Dominion—our trouble is “all wool.” Look at one fact only: Out of the 158 millions o-f money paid to New Zealand producers by the Imperial Government in the great war commandeer, 118 million was paid for wool and other sheep products. All at once wool, etc., has become almost valueless, and we have, with the collapse of our greatest national source of income, something approaching national paralysis. We have Cabinet aghast at the way expenditure is racing under financial stress, are asking their ratepayers to come to the rescue, and pay t rates before they are due. Sections of traders gather to discuss how much longer .they must fling away goods at less than cost, in the hope of catching the last few drops from the stream of currency so rapidly drying up. Harrowing reports of destitution in our cities, etc., etc. All this because the finest industry this land ever had, has, or can have for many a decade—the great sheep industry in this country, the world’s most- perfectly adapted home of the sheep—is dying before our eyes. : Dying, not because wool is anything less than a product of most sterling value and indispensable, not because the world has over sufficient .clothing, but because: (1) Of the blundering mismanagement of the advisers of the Imperial. Government; (2) because of the fact that Yorkshire is again besting us, and wanting to fill its empty stores with wool bought at 2d a lb and worth Is per lb; and (3) because of woolly-headed sheep owners, like the one quoted in your issue of Friday, who “told a pressman he thought sd a lb would be a payable price for average crossbred wool.” This trash has gone the round of some country papers, but it is not passing Shannon without a challenge! How misleading this foolish estimate, and how damaging, I will demonstrate in a few figures. Let our complacent friend dissect his expenditure and income, or, rather, I will dissect it for him, and he can try to show me where I am wrong. Take, then, a 600-acre sheep farm, with homestead, bought at £lO per acre, cleared, fenced and in working order, carrying capacity 1J ewes to the acre, and a few steers:— INCOME.

Leaving our friend nothing for his own labour, and only £lO to live on for a year, to buy “stores, boots, clothing, to maintain his homestead and fences, to renew his flock, to pay insurance, blacksmith, saddler, wages for domestic help, motor-car, expenditure, etc., etc., all out of £lO. Enough said! Let me repeat, our trouble is “all wool.” Get its true value for wool, and then, and not till then, the rosy dawn of prosperity will again break upon us, the bent shoulders of the man on ihe land will straighten, and the city man, now haggard with anxiety, and whitening with loss of sleep, will recover his buoyancy, and he and we shall again he lighthearted, as in the lovely past.—l am, etc., FARMER.

wool each off 750, at 8d lb £187 10 0 600 store lambs, 8s 240 0 0 100 cull lambs, 5s 25 0 0 60 steers, profit 30s per head 90 0 0 £542 10 0 EXPENSES. Interest on cost of farm £6000 at 7£ per cent £450 0 0 Land tax and local rate, say Shearing, packs, freight, 45 0 0 commission at Is per sheep / 37 10 0 - £532 10 0