The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE FRIDAY, MARCH 21, 1919. A WOOL-MARKETING SENSATION.

Taihape Daily Times, 21 March 1919, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

FRIDAY, MARCH 21, 1919. A WOOL-MARKETING SENSATION.

(With wtucfa is incorporated Thfl r&ihape Pout tad W almanac* News).

(Some New Zealand wools have recently found their way to market in the United States. From casual observation this fact rather gives cause for congratulation than for concern or alarm. To derive at the real outcome of exporting ' Australasian wools to America, however, it lias to be followed through its various processes of manufacture, and then only will it be found what the real intention of the United States wool-buyers is. There seems little doubt that American wool-dealers are out to exploit these Dominions in wool as the Meat Trust is in meat. With the surplus amassed by importing wool from every available; quarter Yankee dealers have commenced competition with British wool in countries just across the North Sea, in Norway, Sweden, and other Scandinavian countries. This has alarmed British wool people; they cannot understand why American firms should be in a position to break new ground in Scandinavia; in mar kets that hitherto been entirely in British hands. Of course. United States firms are enabled to successfully exploit markets alongside Britain owing to wool stocks being free across the Atlantic, and there beingno restriction as to sale and shipment. State control from wool and from the wool textile trade is gradually being removed, enabling British firms to stretch themselves beyond the limits of the State monopoly which the war rendered nccessacy. Nevertheless. Bradford houses scent a real danger to British wool interests by the arrival in Scandinavia of large shipments of American wool and the irrepressible Yankee commercial traveller, while they were not permitted to even send wool samples without a permit. It should deeply interest wool-growers to know that. American wool and textile houses are in a much better position to commence exploitation cf the world's wool markets than British firms are, and Americans can even operate in Britain with, greater facility than Bradford merchants can, who have their hands completely tied. Until final removal of all restrictions the wool and wool textile export trade of Britain is dead. With no competition the Yanke: merchant is making huge profits, and all New Zealand and Australian wool sent to America is very materially assisting him. It seems that our wool-growers have cause for exercising extreme caution ill dealing with American wool merchants; in fact, there js just as much likelihood of a wool combine endeavouring to control New Zealand wool as of a meat trust to ruin its meat trade, and there is no guarantee that one set of sharks are not seeking to get our chief articles of export completely and entirely into their clutches. As highgrade crossbred wool is what the Americans arc particularly in search of there may arise strong competition for New Zealand's clip during the coming few years; and. of course, our growers cannot afford to lost sight of that as pect of the spontaneous exhibition of American enterprise. There must not, however, be tolerated any such opera>tions cf the confidence trick as the meat trust has been guilty of in endeavouring, to corner meat, to further enslave farmers in connection with their wool. So long as New Zealand farmers take no course, and enter into no contracts or arrangements that would give American wool-buyers control of their output, even for one minute, they are justified in selling in the best market. Anyway this new aspect of the wool trade possesses all the elements for being cither a

blessing or a. curse; wool-growers have, in this early stage, the power to determine which it shall be. Will they rather lean towards America, or will they strive to keep up the B'ritish Empire's wool supremacy of the past? There seems to be greatest safety in looking to the reconstruction of our own Empire trade rather than in countenancing help to build up an American opposition. That the British wool trade n ecds. encouragement in its reconstruction is evidenced by last year's figures of imports and exports of wool. In 1917 imports amounted to 623,232,<5011b5. of wool from all sources, while in 1918 they dropped to 413,419,9071 b., a decrease of 209.512,(S94lb. in one year. The world's production of wool was less, but the shortages affected continental markets most,

and only the British market to a minor degree. It is very evident there are still huge stocks somewhere, awaiting release, and we in New Zealand would feel more comfortable and loss concern for the future if the much-bruited improvement, in shipping was more evident than it is between our shores and our markets in Britain. The New Zealand wool-growers' market is not a matter of immediate worry as the British Goernm.mt arrangement continues for another year; but it is what is going to happen when the requisition terminates. The wool Mephistopheles is already endeavouring to b?dazzlo and b.edizzen farmers with promises of four shillings a pound for their wool, but fanners will no doubt realise that hanging tightly to what they have to sell is more calculated to create a better demand and higher prices than making sales to-day at an advance for delivery a year or two hence, as by so doing they would enable buyers to make and control future markets. Every important incident in the marketing of wool concerns growers more than anybody else, therefore the sensational appearance for the first time in Scandinavia and the Netherlands of American salesmen with extensive shipments of wool, which has surprised and alarmed Bradford wool, merchants, needs to be carefully and diligently watched by them if danger to the British trade with resultant loss is to be avoided. The time was when farmers trusted brokers implicitly, but they have discovered that their interests are best served by attending to their own business, and they now have almost Dominion-wide federation of farming communities with men of unquestionable ability comprising the executive staff to ncte all such surprises in wool marketing that we have r ferred to.