The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE. TUESDAY, MAY 18, 1920. THE PREDICTED WOOL SLUMP.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3489, 18 May 1920, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE.

TUESDAY, MAY 18, 1920. THE PREDICTED WOOL SLUMP.

With which is incorporated “The Taihape Post and Waimarino News.”

It is quite in accordance with human nature, common sense, and good business practice that the Prime Minister‘ of the Australian Commonwealth should endeavour t.o keep ‘Australia’s staple industry on as profitable a plane as possible. It should therefore be equally understandable that he will suggest any course to prevent wool being maintained as a shuttlecock t.o be tossed about at the will and pleasure of mill-owners, and manufacturers -in Britain. .There is promise of a very considerable slump in wool values which will detrimentally, if not disastrously, affect the Australian income, and Mr‘ Hughes is naturally anxious that no continuance of profiteering in wool in Britain should be allowed to make the work of reconstruction in the Doininions over--seas more diflieult while such difliculty would result from unfair trading by wool buyers. Mr Hughes has the definite, irrefutable evidence of a State Commission that as much as three thousand per cent profit hacs been taken out of wool, and his common-sense leads him to the View ‘thatiif profits must be cut down the British people should start upon p‘aring away at the three thousand per cent. Prices of woollen goods are still tinordinately out of proportion to price paid for wool, in fact, it is not clear how Australia cau prosper if her wool is to be cut down in value while the prices of everything bought from Britain are being increased. Profitecring has run the whole gamut on the individual, now British profit vultures are turning their attention to fastening upon whole British Donifnions in an orgy of bloodsucking. Until woollen manufacturers in Britain bring down their profits on wool from the .<.halneless audacity plane, they have no semblance of just. right to engineer :1 scheme for taking

Whatever reduction is made on woollen goods to the consumer out of the pocket of the producer. Broadly, this is the View Mr Hughes has taken to prevent a slump in wool prices arising from wool being in supply greater than demand: ‘he has suggested that no Australian wool be ofi'ered for sale in Britain from ‘October to December, a proposal quite in accordance with present moment practice by middlemen everywliere. If it is legitimate trade for WOOI buyers to withheld from market to pile up in store until a hungry demand puts up values, it should also be quite legitimate for Wool-growers individually and collectively to do likewise. The plain fact is the Dominion and Australian woolgrowers are faced with a eorisidei-able drop in wool velues, and the Prime Minister of Australia is suggesting the well-worn usage of witholding from market so that increased supply may not be injurious to the grower. The British Wool Federation think that -.\lr Hughes, as representative of growers, has no right to interfere with their adjustments and fixing up of markets, prices and profits; they protest that his proposals if brought into efiect, would disorganise the whole wool trade in its present organisation, but what has that to do With the question? Wool is fairly and honestly worth the fifteenpence ‘a. pound now paid for it, vimd it has been proved that‘ two hundred per Cent could be taken front the consumer’s price for-‘woollen goods‘ and still leave huge profits for manufacturers. Has not Mr Mallaby-‘ Deeley, M.P., proved to completeness!

that tweed and worsted suits of clothes

écau be sold at :1 good, i’-air profit for from £2 10/ to £4 17/GE? He undertook |tu produce 5000 suits and 5000 over‘coats per week at the prices menltioncd, but the resulh of advertising ~discloscd that the engineered shortage resulting ‘from artificially limited supiply was more grossly wicked than he, even, had imagined. Orders, with pay'ment. enclosed came to hand by post in tens of thousands per day, a whole ‘postal van being necessary for delivery .of his mail. H‘. was non-plussed, and merely 1-emu;-k----ed that he’ had not undertaken to supply the whole world with clothing; he would, however, endeavour to purchase other factories and so meet ‘the demand as far as possible. Woollei. mills in New Zealand will 11-J5 produce at Deeley’s price, although they get raw material much cheaper than the, millers who make twer-ds for iDeelcy’s factories. For, of course. it is naturally assumel llililt New Zealand wool spinners are jusii as eager to keep all increases th3us(.‘iVes and pass the price-slumps on to the producers. At his prices in Britain, Mr Dccley, M.P., was “sn.;owel untilei-'-' with orders; he did not nick: lllia‘ bone fide shortage the excuse for increasing “his price, as Woollen people in New fzeal-and do. He simply said: “I did ‘not undertake to make suits for the Whole world, but I will get more factories, if possible, and do my best to [meet the demand.” Under precisely similar circumstances, members of the ;Wool Federation and Woollen Mill ‘owners in New Zealand see glorious opportunity for hoisting prices sky high. It would indeed be interesting ,to have an approximate estimate of just what is pocketed in profits on (shortage, profits on something intangible, profits -on something not supplied, but kept as :a. standby, nursed for use in extorting still greater, and increaspiugly greater profits. Mr W. M. Hughes has the whole wool trade of Britain opposed to his proposal to withhold wool from sale in Britain from October to December, and they will probably defeat it, but is it not an Empire scandal that overseas Dominions should be treated much worse than foreign countries‘? The Dominions are fleeced both ways; we mean that British merchants and manufac’r.urers are flooding the Dominions with expensively-got-up literature impm-tuning for trade preference, and for preferential duties being levied on all goods but those from Britain, and in return British manufac‘turers and merchants combine and strive for the continuance of a marketing system in Britain in which pro-' ducts from the Dominions are taken at prices nstonishinrgly less than those paid for South American products. Why are British wool buyers so anxious that wool sales should continue as usual, in spite of a supply calculated to cause :1 slump in prices? In explanation, it may be pointed out that Southern Europe, Italy, Greece, and also France are in dire. Straits for wool and meat; families arestarving, living'upon a. few chestiiutswithoiit meat. The various Governments are striving by all in their power to alleviate the suffering and want. Journals from those countries indicate that the meat and wool coming from America, through trust agencies, goes but little way in; meeting famine requirements, and that appeals are being made to Britain forl help in their distres.~_=. lf this Domin-a ion could control shipping to cnablei Southern European markets beingl reached our farmers could get double’ the price they are receiving for wool‘ at present, if only through the <lifl’or~ once in rate of cxclmnge. But shipping combines are in league with Brit- I is}: syndicates, and they compel the‘ Dominions to sell their wool to British combines, who trnnship it tol France, Italy, and Greece, not only getting the usual profits but also an-‘ other hundred per cent by a 'fzlvour~able exchange rate. Then it will be‘ seen what Mr W. M. Hughes is endc:n'— ouring to do for Australian produc-I ers; he desires to withhold wool from] sale in England from October to Dc-, ccmber and instead hold sales in Ans-l tralia. where lFrcncll lltalian, Greelel and other buyers could purchase at’ first hand, enabling Australian farm-I ers, instead of British wool syndicates, enjoying all the benefits from an ex-I change rate which vil'tu:lll_v adds one] hundred per cent to the price received. 4 Is it any wonder that the British} wool hogs are hounding down Mri Hughes’ wool proposals ,