THE WOOL PROFITS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3524, 10 July 1920, Page 5

THE WOOL PROFITS.

A total sum of about £1,500,000 is apparently clue to New Zealand woolgrowers as their share of the profits accruing from the sale of wool for civilian purposes up to March 31, 1919, but neither Sir Arthur Goldfineh’S statement nor the more extensive review-‘ by Lord Inverforth indicates the amount of the final dividend. on the three clips: coming fv?‘lt.hin this arrangement. Up to March 31, 1919, the lrnperial Supplies‘Departmerit in New Zealand had paid about £42_,000.n00 for wool and sheepskins, but a iurge proportion of these purchases had not been shipped, and only a small fraction of the deliveries had passed into civilian consumption} to earn profits. Sir Arthur Goldfinch’s trading account covers only five months beyond the period of hostilities, and that a time of great uncertainty, in which n1:1n-ufaetiirers were cancelling orders. The public auctions did not begin untii April, 3919, and even then conditions were so disturbed that the Director of Raw Mateiials issued 450,000 bales of Australian and New Zealuml woo‘. at 25 per cent. above the requisition price in an eifort to stabilise the ma‘rket. Yet even at that time. the accounts for Australian and I\'<-w Zealand wool "were in a satisfactory conditon. “Up to February 2.8,» .1019,” Sir Arthur Goldfinch stated recently, “the cash account W 53 stiTl in debt, but fiiere were the stocks in hand, and we were getting very m-nr the hour whé'n they might be reganled as all }*.l'ofit."’i Presumably, the pl'o‘fil.~: now announced were those gained on the actual sales of wool, m:iinl_v «luring the War period, to civi~ lian m:‘luufacturers:. To them will be i1(l(l(‘,d the further profits from the realisation, under peace conditions, of the large stocks held at March 81, 1919, and since purch'a'se‘d. There has b1‘(‘ll :1. long‘ delay in the publication at‘ a. preliminary account, and it cannot. be expected that the final adjustment. involving the larger portion of the profits, will be impossible for some months yei~.——N.Z. Herald.