WOOL PROSPECTS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 358, 19 May 1928, Page 25

WOOL PROSPECTS

AN AMERICAN VIEW FUTURE MARKET SOUND Australian woolgrowers are not losing any sleep over the alleged substitutes for wool. Their view strongly is that there is “nothing like wool.” However, it Is always Interesting to note what others are saying about it. The National Bank of Commerce (New York), in a recent Issue of its “Monthly Review,” endeavours to review the world’s wool production. One broad conclusion arrived at is that the changing habits and fashions of the people, and the Introduction of new fabrics will make little appreciable difference to the consumption of wool —at least, in the near future. Social Changes The Review states that as higher wool prices limited the demand for manufactured goods, and encouraged substitution, the last 30 years have been a period of transition in whicli the fundamental factors at work have been gradually making for a new balance of supply and demand at a higher level of prices. The process, however, has been delayed by a net decline in per capita requirements for wool —the outcome of certain fundamental social changes. Man’s dependence upon wool for protection against the rigours of winter has been greatly modified by the steam-heated habits of city life, and cities are sheltering an increasing proportion of the total population. Women’s Fashions More important, perhaps, in its effect on wool consumption has been the continuous downward readjustment in the quantity of clothing prescribed by styles for women, while the use of wool in women’s garments has been further circumscribed in these days of prosperity by the widespread vogue for the luxury of silk. At the same time there is evidence that the readjustment has run its course. Declines in per capita consumption' have been offset to some extent by a wider geographical use of wool and the increase in population. “It is difficult,” the “Review” states, “to see how any change in women’s styles can redound except to the advantage of wool. It is true that popular use of silks has not as yet spread much beyond the borders of the United States, but it is not likely that the mass of European consumers will achieve in the near future anything like the same degree of prosperity that prevails here. Some confirmation of this thesis is to be found in the absorption at well sustained prices of the large quantities of wool offered in the last two seasons."