The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. MONDAY, AUGUST 11, 1930. LIFTING CLOUDS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 188, 11 August 1930, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

MONDAY, AUGUST 11, 1930. LIFTING CLOUDS.

For <7ie oous* /ftaf Zocfce <ws»sfajw£, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do.

The latest news' from the ■ British and Continental wool markets should be decidedly cheering to the pastoralists of Australia and New Zealand. The large surplus stocks held in Germany, France and Belgium, the chief centres of the Continental woollen trade, are being rapidly used up, and it is now predicted that these clearances will mean increased demand and keen competition among Continental buyers next season. So far the indications do not seem to justify' more than "mild optimism," but they at least encourage the belief that so far as wool is concerned the tide is turning and that there are better times ahead in the near future.

As regards' the Dominion's wool trade, it should be remembered that Avhile the wool disposed of at the sales during the past season realised over £5,000,000, about £1,500,000 worth was reported unsold. Of course, this valuation was made on the loav scale of prices then ruling, and if the wool then reserved were sold at higher prices later on the returns would be. correspondingly augmented. But even this does not allow for the large amount of wool which was never submitted for sale, but was deliberately held back for an improving market. These causes account for a considerable proportion of the great falling-off in our wool export values for 1929-30, as compared with the previous year.

It is well to bear in. mind these facts and figures in considering the present position and the future prospects of the Dominion's export trade. The total fall in our export values for last financial year was about £8,600,000. But nearly £8,000,000 of this decline is to be put down to wool alone. There were special causes, which may soon be rectified, for the falling-off of over £500,000 in the cheese returns; and the decline in other export valuqs, though fairly substantial in some cases, made very little serious difference to the totals in the final "balance of trade."

As a contrast to this decline there is an increase in butter returns, which have made a record in both quantity and value, i.n spite of al2 per cent fall in prices. In gold, timber, kauri gum, casein and mutton there has been a considerable improvement in the returns, and the value of our apple export alone increased last year by more than £250,000. In view of the general downward tendency of prices throughout the world, very satisfactory proofs that our products are holding their own in outside markets. Allowing for differences , in . price levels, the volume of exports for 1929-30 is not far short of 50 per cent greater than it was in 1913-14, before the war; and our success in making up in the quantity of our exports for the comparative decline in values is quite sufficient to warrant complete confidence in our industrial and financial future, and to justify high hopes-for a speedy recovery from the temporary depression through which we are now passing.