The Southern Cross PUBLISHED WEEKLY. Invercargill, Saturday, Aug. 18. FREE WOOL FOR AMERICA.

Southern Cross, Volume 2, Issue 21, 18 August 1894, Page 8

The Southern Cross PUBLISHED WEEKLY. Invercargill, Saturday, Aug. 18. FREE WOOL FOR AMERICA.

“ There is a silver lining to every cloud,” and at a time like the present, when the foreign meat trade is, to continue the figure, “ under a cloud,” it is refreshing to learn, as we have this week, that after the 26th of this present month of August wool will he admitted free of duty into the United States. The Americans have at last become alive to the fact that the restrictions that have heretofore been placed upon the importation of foreign wool have had a most prejudicial effect upon their woollen industries. Some interesting details on this point were recently furnished by a contributor to the Bradford Observer, the analysis of the returns dealt with being in favor of free-trade Britain. It is not, however, our intention to take up the vexed question ef free-trade v. protection, but simply to consider the probable effect of the new order of things on the colonial wool industry. With a yearly Home supply of from three to four hundred million lbs of wool, the United States have been importing about one million lbs. of wool per year. This has been done in . the face of ,a heavy duty. With the removal of this it may be fairly assumed that American manufactories, many of which have had to “ shut down,” will greatly increase, giving a large and important market for the wool product of the world. Hew Zealand is bound to share in the steadying of prices that will ensue as one of the first effects of the abolition of the barriers hitherto set up against outside wool, and in this connection it is of interest to glance at her present position as a wool-producing country. With a population of a little over half-a-million of people, our wool export is comparatively large and important. The quantity of wool exported from the colony for the quarters ending on the last days of June, September, and December, of 1893, and of March, 1894, amounted to no less than 16,400,643 lbs., valued at £4,292,106, and it may be taken for granted that this item of our exports, large as it is, could be enormously increased. Even now a slight advance in prices would mean a vexy substantial addition to our income. It would be most welcome.