AUSTRALIAN WOOL

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18924, 12 February 1927, Page 6

AUSTRALIAN WOOL

ALLEGED DETERIORATION. BRADFORD CHARGES REFUTED. (JSOM OCR OKI CORRESPOHDtST.) SYDNEY, January 21. Complaints by a Bradford expert, Mr S. B. Hollings, that there was an average de T terioratlon of at least 20 per cent, in the quality and character of the majority of the Australian wool clips aroused considerable comment in the principal Australian woolselling centres. Mr Hollings said that the real causo of the trouble wis careless breeding. Pastorallsts are unanimous on two points. One is that the capacity of the Australian sheepbreeder to produce line wool is as great and unchallengeable as it ever has been. The other is that the production of a preponderance of the stronger types ot wool Is due to the present demands of the market. In short, the growers say that they are producing the classes ot wool which pay them best. Mr Harold Bell, a director of our largest wool-selling firm, acknowledged that the Australian clip was now broader than before the war. But it was useless, ho said, to deploro the absence of fineness In some of tho clips, as it was merely a matter bf which, type gave the most profitable return. Before the war land values, working expenses, and the incidents of taxation in Australia were all on a much lower scale than to-day, and the man on the land could make a living on a smaller margin ot profit. To-day the grower of the medium-woolled robust type of sheep was beating the grower of the fineweolled, more delicate type by at least 3s per head. If the world liked to pay for the fine wool on a basis comparable with the other, the Australian crower w«rold soon produce It. The defects of the fine wool sheep were obvious. The dip was lighter, the earcsse much smaller, its meat value almost negligible, and the losses were greater owing to its weaker constitution. Mr W. W. Klllen, M.P., a well-known breeder, said: "Surely breeders ot medium to strong wool who get averages of 121b to 141b of wool per sheep would be mad to take Mr Holllngs's advice and breed back to fine-woolled sheep of less robust constitution, which would yield perhaps 81b or 91b of wool and produce less mutton. There have beon breeders Itt the past who bred on these lines In their attempt to follow the fashion, but I have never heard of one who succeeded in making It a financial success. There will, of coarse, be some who breed for quality, but, with most of us, allround profitableness is the goal aimed at. Australian wool-growers can be safely trusted to know on which side their bread Is buttered. If South African growers have, as Mr Hollings states, gone back to fine wool, that is their busness, but no amount of advice from wool experts will induce Australians who know that their sheep are of a much more profitable type thnn they were 20 years ago, to scrap what they have done and" go back to the unprofitable type." Mr C. G. Waddell. chairman ot the Australian Wool-growers' Council, suggested that it would be In the Interests of Australian wool-growers if British manufacturers set ont on definite lines their constructive criticism ot the Australian wool clip. The question of quality was mainly in the hands of the buyers themselves. Tf they were prepared to pay the price, the Australian woolgrower whose country was cspable of growing the highest clsss of merino wool would grow It. Senator Onthrie, one of the most prominent of Victorian breeders, quoted statistics to show that in 1914-15 the clip was classified as 76.5 per cent, merino and 23.6 crossbred, while the clip of ]924-25 was 81.5 per cent, merino and 18.5 crossbred. "Though there have been many practical indueements," he said, "to produce coarser wool, there Is an Ingrained preference amonj Australian breeders fer the finer types."