The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE. SATURDAY, NOV. 27, 1920. THE WOOL SITUATION.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 3639, 27 November 1920, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE.

SATURDAY, NOV. 27, 1920. THE WOOL SITUATION.

•With which ia incorporated "The Taihape Post and Wainiarino News "

A Masterton settler has returned from a visit to Europe, and is enthusiastically proclaiming that Europe could absorb all the available wool there is in the world had Continental people the requisite money. There is nothing now disclosed in that statement, for almost identical words have been used in this column time after time. The usefulness of the Masterton man's newly discovered economic truth will probably lie in the extended publicity that may be given to it. The world's wool production will not —cannot —supply, the extraordinary demand for very many yeras yet to come, andvwith the opening up "of trade with Russia, which Britain has recently decided upon, there will be a fairly constant flow of money from eastward to westward iu which other countries besides Russia will benefit. What the Masterton returnee might have corroborated was the fact that British woolmongers have bought up cheap wool since the stoppage of war and sold it in Europe at enormous profits until they have drawn the continent dry of credit. That would not be so bad were it not obvious that those woolmongers have now started to bleed the producers by refusing tb buy wool, or even attend wool sales Until the wool is offering at what they like to give for it. New Zealand wool for the next twenty years could be taken by continental people, only for the fact that woolprofiteers have stripped them of credit; they have no money wherewith to buy more wool, and New Zealand producers cannot sell their wool where they please because they arc forced to let it go where ships owned by shipping rings are pleased to take it, and that is invariably in ' accordance with the wishes of wool-profiteers. Readers of continental papers devoted td trade and finance were fully aware over a year ago of the current and developing wool situation; this journal and some others stated the position then disclosed, but the most disconcerting feature of that situation was that the New Zealand Government took no steps j whatever in the Dominion's interests. The result is, growers arc faced with a wool situation in which they will be cozened into accepting about sixpence for that which, if followed up, will be seen to sell in Europe for about twice as many shillings. Of course there is ; no shortage in demand for wool; it markets could be got at as they should wool-growers would be getting at least two shillings a pound for it. Mr J. C. Cooper, the Masterton man referred to seems to be surprised that there is a gaping demand for wool; that there is a wool hunger that cannot be satisfied because continental countries have not the money to buy wool with. Tire implacability of a certain ring in Britain against opening up trading relatonship with Russia and the defeated rations is sufficient to arouse the suspicions of the most gullable: Soviet Russia has found unsurmountable Difficulties to contend with, and despite Ihe rscent victory against Wrangol the ; Soviet is ](•«•= a master in Russia to-day \ lhan a year ago. Siberian, South Rusj -ran and other revolts have become a i perpetual, terrifying., motion which the Soviet cannot stop; wliich becomes less amenable to Soviet rule, and the leaders of Soviet Russia have shown a leflex desire to trade with Britain prefer- : ably, but with anybody if not with ' Britain. Yet a certain coterie in Britain have determinedly, persistently opposed having any trade relationship w ith Russia. Mr J. C. Cooper, wc think, had the perspicacity to see what the opposing coterie had in view; they did not want any trade with Russia until they had got under their thumb, at a starvation -price to the grower, all those commodities Russian peoples are in the direst need of. It will be remembered that Krassin and Kamineff, while on a trade mission to the British Government, bought from British merchants huge "quantities of British-made cloths. Further, all re-

ports by those officially sent to investigate conditions in Russia awed upon i the one theme: people arc ill-clad, going about' without coars while the temperature is degrees below zero. Russia above all needs millions of yards of woollen material for men and women; it needs millions of bales of wool more than it will be. able to buy, but the time for selling wool and wo&llen goods to Russians is not till the wool coterie at Home have scooped up all the Empire has in the hands of its wool-growers, at a price which virtually means ruin to many of them. This is the truth Mr. J. C. .Cooper has probably learned in his investigation of 3 the' wool situation in Europe; he will also probably have learned what a powerful thing the wool vampire is. But he sees cause for some satisfaction in a market that wil) not be .satisfied, not e-ven after 'the vampiiv pack have poured all their .sixpence a pound wool j into Russia at twelve shillings a pound. He is satisfied that wool prices cannot remain where they are to-day for long into the future; that the opening up of trade with Continental peoples will soon j have the desired effect upon Contin- j ental treasuries; that the stores of j sixpenny wool, , unlike the widow's j cruse of oil, cannot be drawn upon indefinitely. Mr.-J. C. Cooper sees in the rather distant future the bright gleam! of a wool market that Is not overshadowed by the stacks of sixpenny wool, of which growers have been virtually plundered. We hesitate to end the pleasant dream, but the shipping combine seems to have been left out of consideration. Ever since the armistice was signed there has been talk about normal 'shipping- There is more shipping in the world to-day than ever before, and yor freights will not come down to anything approaching what is reasonable. There are said to be ample ships for allfepurposes; that freight reductions are contemplated, and last of all it :s cabled, only yesterday, that ships are idle simply -because they, are not in demand. The present shipping control prefers to let ships lie idle, it seems, rather thau pull down "freights from their profiteering heights. If for no other purpose on earth, a ''farmers' party" is justified for the establishment of marketing conditions that can defy the exploitation proclivities of profiteering parasites who have fastened upon producers.