OUTLOOK FOR WOOL.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 250, 21 October 1924, Page 4

OUTLOOK FOR WOOL.

BROKERS GETTING NERVOUS. SOME UNSETTLING FACTORS. (From Our Special Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, Oct. 20. ? About the middle of next month, or, to be more precise, on November 15, the wool selling season in New Zealand will be<rin, when a sale will lie held at Wellington. Brokers, buyers, growers, classei s and seou. c -• o beginning to talk wool, and the first of the clips are coming into store. The firmness of the wool market is not surprising, for it is generally known that supplies are below the consumptive demand, nevertheless there is some nervousness because prices are dangerously high. But high as they are there will be some growers who will not think them high enough, and will place reserves on their clips which no buyer with sense would venture to pay. It is very depressing in a saleroom for an auctioneer constapty singing out "Passed t 0 ." Buyers immediately become dispirited, and the bidding slackens, for, after all, what is the good of making a bid when one knows that the grower . wants a fancy price. As a general rule growers will find that the brokers can assess values much more accurately than they (the growers) can, and the matter is best left to the broker to deal with How little some farmers know about wool selling was shown when it was seriously discussed at a meeting of a branch of the Tanners' Union whether it would not be advisable to ask the auctioneers to dwoll a little more on the bidding in order to try and extract 1 another fraction. Of course those who suggested that were thinking of the eale yards where an auctioneer may be hanging on to the bidding to obtain another penny a head for a line of sheep, or 6d per head for a line of bullocks. In the wool sale room one is dealing with experts who have their buying limits and they are proof against all the wiles and the tricks of the auctioneer or the grower. Coming back to values, brokers are certainly very nervous, lor anything may happen between now and the middle of November. The principal danger to the wool market is finance, and if by any chance money becomes dear, then all calculations will be upset. At one time it was a practice with some buyers to scour the country buying wool, but now, with sales in so many centres and store accommodation in abundance, there is very little private sale of wool. It is anticipated that the bulk of the New Zealand clip wi 1 be marketed locally, and it is understood that the overseas section of buyers will be augmented this season by representatives from Germany.