WOOL TALKS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 70, Issue 119, 4 March 1950, Page 5

WOOL TALKS

FLUCTUATION IN PRICES RESERVE SCHEME CONSIDERED (Rec. 10.30) LONDON, March 3. Talks which have been going on in London for a month between Britain and the Dominions on wool prices have now reached the stage when a report can be made to the Governments concerned. A Board of Trade statement said that the talks, which were attended by delegations representing Britain, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, reviewed the Joint Organisation set up in 1945 to dispose of the large stock of wool which had accumulated in the hands of the British Government during the war in such a way as to secure the orderly marketing of stock alongside new clips. The statement said that out of nearly 10,500,000 bales of wool taken over by the Joint Organisation in August, 1945, all but 1,150,000 bales had been disposed of at December 31 last, and if the programme of offerings for the current season was fulfilled, stocks at the end of June, 1950, would be down to about 500,000 bales. It was expected that the disposal of stock would be completed by June, 1951. The statement said that the conference had considered the possibility of modifying sharp fluctuations- in the price of a short-term kind, not related to the general trend of commodity prices, to which wool had been subject in the past. The statement added: “No attempt has been made to devise any scheme aimed at ironing out long-term fluctuations, or at trying to maintain wool prices out of line with price movements of other commodities. Instead, consideration had been directed to whether a practicable and desirable reserve prffee scheme might be devised which would operate when wool prices fall, and which, in a period of low prices, would serve, to moderate fluctuations. Correspondingly wool bought in during such a period would then be resold to modify upward price movements.”