SELLING FLEECES.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 278, 21 November 1913, Page 5

SELLING FLEECES.

I FIRST SALE ON WEDNESDAY. OFFERING OF NEARLY 6000 BALES. On Wednesday morning next the first wool sale of the 1013-14 season will be | held in the concert chamber of the I Town Hall. Entries were to have closed I last evening, but the Auckland WoolI brokers' Association decided that the I catalogues should remain open until to- ■ night in order to admit any offerings j which might have been delayed in transit I owing to the effects of the strike. i Brokers state that the total offering 1 will approximate 0000 bales. At last i season's opening sale over SOOO bales ; were offered. Tlie reason for the diminuI tion is to be located among the results lof the industrial trouble. When everything is taken into conI sideration. however, the extent of tlie I oifering is highly satisfactory, as also is I the quality of tlie lots in store. Wool I from the Far North is naturally not as well conditioned as might have been the

I case bad the season been more favourI able in that direction, but contributions i from other districts are, on the whole, I well got up. j One uf the most interesting features 'of the sale will doubtless be the extent 1 to which the American buyers operate in i view of the repent action of the United , states legislature in placing wool on the free-imports list. A representative of an I American house who arrived by the I Makura on Wednesday, informed a rei porter that nothing sensational was ! likely to happen in this direction all at I once." i "We have got to get the feel of I things." he observed, "before we know i what use the lower-grade wools will be ito us." He added that hitherto the I Americans could only operate in the j finest ivooi- because of the heavy duties ■ tliev bad had to pay when taking them Ito the States. Now that a free tariff • existed this consideration would not I affect them, and they would, probably '< experiment in other qualities'. But it should he remembered that this would '< lie an experiment only because it might ' turn out that they could import top- ' quality wool to better advantage than | they could import coarser wool for treatI ment in the States. Another point was 1 that the American manufacturers did not 1 have the machinery that the Bradford ! people had for dealing with the latter class of wool.