WOOL IMPORT DUTY

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 67, Issue 243, 26 July 1947, Page 5

WOOL IMPORT DUTY

Cut Predicted in United States “DEATH-KNELL OF HOME INDUSTRY” (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright.) NEW YORK, July 24. . A forecast that an executive or- ■ der will he issued making a 25 per cent cut in the woe) import duty as soon as the new Wool Bill is cleared through legislative channels is made by the Boston correspondent of the Journal of Commerce.

The Wool Bill did not, as expected, come up in the House to-day, because of the pressure of other business in the last week of the session. The Bill would garantee American growers a Government purchase price averaging 42.3 cents per lb during the remainder of 1947 and all of 1948. It would also permit the Commodity Credit Corporation to sell 460,000,0001 b of low grade wool stockpile owned by the Government at prices in competition with comparable grades of imported wool. The Senate on June 26 approved the present Bill, which omits the controversial provision empowering the President to impose import quotas or fees additional to the existing duty. This was included in the original legislation, which President Truman vetoed. • Domestic Industry Decline Mr C. J. Fawcett, general manager of the National Wool Marketing Corporation, representing over 50,000 growers in 22 States, told the Boston correspondent of the Australian Associated Press that the predicted 25 per cent cut in duty on imported wool would sound the death knell of the domestic wool industry.

“The domestic wool Industry has declined 35 per cent in the last five years,” he added, “and the number of lambs has decreased by 8,600,000. The present duty of 34 cents a clean content pound does not offset the difference in the cost of production in Australia and the United States. Until recently 85 per cent, of all wool used by American manufacturers was of foreign original, so why reduce the import duty? Further, the United States is prqbably the best market the British Empire can find to sell shopworn stocks accumulated during the war.”