WOOL OUTLOOK.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3468, 23 April 1920, Page 6

WOOL OUTLOOK.

__-———o_——j. A DISQUIETING REPORT.

XVELLINGTON, April 21‘

A letter dated February 16th, and sent by the Di_x-ector-General'of Raw Materials, London, to Mr Massey, con-

tains the foll‘o»wing passages: I am sorry to say that very considerable difliculty is» expected in carrying out arrangements to lift the whole of the Australian and New Zealand wool before the end of the year. Steamers

carrying meat and wool are experiencling very great delay. in the Thames and elsewhere in British waters, very Ulzirgely pwing to difficulty in dealing with meat. The carrying p‘o~wer of 'the steamship linesiwox-king with New Zealand ‘Australia is thei-eby‘l-educed by at last 30 per cent., and they are finding it impossible _to deal with the cargo offered. for shipment in the two Dominions. It is true that this Department has a contract with the Aus- 1

ftralian Refrigerated Tonnage Committee which positively binds their; steamers to lift the entire balance ‘of wool before November 30th, but .1111‘fortunately the Shipping Controller ‘has intervened to press upon these i'steamers« shipments of Wheat, which "were not specifically contracted for. =We are -protesting against such interference, but the fact is that as regards “4(i’s” wool our market is very well supplied, and as regards coarser grades of Wool considerable stocks are lying dead in our hands. It is therefore’ extremely difficult for us 1‘ to maintain’ that the shipment of l 70,000 ibales of new wo'o-1 per month, !

largely consisting of medium and coai-se breds; is indispensable, and we are afraid we shall be compelled for some months to allow the :shipments from New Zealand to fall to 40,000 bales per month, or even Tess. Existing market dovnditions indicate‘ prettily clearly the probability that as regards low crossbreds A FULL YEAR'S CLIP, EQUAL TO ABOUT 200,000 BALES, IS LIKELY TO RE~ MAIN IN THE IMPERIAL GOVERNMENTS HANDS “THEN YOUR NEXT CLIP BEGINS TO BE GATH-

'ERED. The time must surely come when the large masses ‘of people in the impoverished parts of Europe who cannot afford to pay for luxuries will provide a demand on a large scale I'o-r useful woollen clothing made out of coarse crossbreds, but it- must be admitted that the market shows no sign of such a demand making itself felt; .‘ on the contrary, we hear that in‘ the] United States holders of cl“o4ssbre'cls,.‘ both from New Zealand and South‘ America;. are breaking prices badly in V ‘a desperate effort to find an outlet for ' ‘this dead stock, but are not finding that this helpssales much. It must be clear to you- that sooner or latex“ the question must be faced whether too much coarse crossbred wool is not being grown in’ View of the infinitely better prices which are now being paid for ‘fine crossbreds.