HUGE WOOL PROFITS

Wairarapa Age, 23 March 1920, Page 7

HUGE WOOL PROFITS

SUSPICIOUS SECRECY. Some facts about wool prices given two years ago in a review article by an, authority on the subject are of interest in view of the universal attention which has been directed to the question of publishing the reports of the recent inquiry in England as to the immense profits made. Dealing with the total prices of the spinners, the writer of the article gave the figures for three grades of yarn:— In 1914 the margin of the spinner I of English wool—the cheapest grade—jwas 6id per pound. That is, on each pound of wool turned into yarn the difference between the buying and selling price was 6}d, £he spinning costs and profit being met out of this. The profit was a penny a pound,., leaving 5Jd for the total production cost. On this pre-war profit many Bradford spinners managed to,build up considerable fortunes. In October, 1917, the margin in the ! free civilian trade—as contrasted with ! the controlled prices of Army clothhad increased to 2s 8d a pound, of which Is 8d was profit—the increase at that date being, therefore, 1900 per cenjfc. on the cheapest yarn. The margin on crossbred wool rose from >7d a pound in 1914 to 3s 5d iD October, 1917, the increase in profit being calculated at 2500 per cent.' 3000 PER CENT. The margin on Australian wool—the finest grade—roße from lOd in 1914 tc 4s 3d in October, 1917. The profit in crease was then 3000 per, cent. What must it be at present? On this the* writer of the article made the following pungent comment: "Your wool man will tell you that excess profits duty and income-tax arc taking most of this huge increase away from him. He will tell you that the Government is compelling him to keep a large share,of his machinery on wajupon which no such profits are allowed. Both these things are true Nevertheless, the civilian trade if meanwhile being plundered on a scale which constitutes a public Bcandal." If that were so in 1917, what of to-day, when virtually the whole trade has again become civilian, and prices have advanced still further, and whor people in. the trade tell a long-suffering community that the price of woollep clothes will soar higher than evcri UNDER THREATS. An interesting story was told of the British manufacturing side of the trade. In 1915 manufacturers, finding the civilian trade more profitable than Army contracts, "demanded prices which made the War Office gasp.'' The Army/ authorities suffered the high prices for a time, but presently secured the services of "some quite competent officials who understood all about calculations and cloth structure." They fixed prices and secured supplies under threats of commandeering the factories, as they did actually commandeer the raw wool supplies.

They set a precedent for the Profiteering Committees by preparing a form for the manufacturer "to set forth in full detail all his costs for the goods to be made." So well was it done that no loophole was left for concealed profits. In a day, when the civilian trade was clamouring for goods and ready to pay any prico it can be taken for granted that the manufacturer gnashed his teeth at such proceedings. Indeed, to divulge his calculations at all was sacrilege. They are so sacred that in many mills cipher is extensively used, even for weavers 7 cards, in ordor to prevent comparatively harmless information I getting Out."