WOOL PRICES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 March 1943, Page 2

WOOL PRICES

REPLY TO THE MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE. MADE BY MR L. T. DANIELL. As he was reported in a Wellington Press Association message published yesterday, the Minister of Agriculture (Mr Barclay) challenged observations on the subject of wool prices made by Mr L. T. Daniell, of Masterton, denying amongst other things Mr Daniell’s statement that Australian wool manufacturers pay 15 per cent above export parity. ‘ ' . “‘Mr Barclay makes the unfair blunder of insisting to our detriment that the New Zealand manufacturers should pay the wool growers 15 per cent less than appraised prices while the Australian manufacturers pay 15 per cent more than appraised prices,” Mr Daniell said today. The Minister’s statement that “in the first year of the war Australian manufacturers paid 91 per cent under export parity” was obviously wrong, Mr Daniell added. It was clearly stated in Dalgety’s Wool Review (1941-1942) that in the first year of the war the Australian manufacturer paid 5 per cent plus all charges above appraised prices. In the second year the Australian manufacturers paid 71 per cent above appraised prices. In the third year the Australian manufacturers paid 15-per cent above appraised prices. In the latest amendment, covering the period July 1, 1942, to June 30, 1943, the Australian wool manufacturers pay 25 per cent above appraised prices. “The only excuse that can be imagined for Mr Barclay is that a clerk wrote his statement for him and that Mr Barclay could not have read what he signed,” Mr Daniell said. “The Minister’s innacuracies,” he added, “have had the effect of delaying, that is to say denying, justice to the woolgrowers.”