The Wool sale.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 19852, 13 February 1930, Page 10

The Wool sale.

' Though the prices obtained at the wool sale which concluded yesterday make a J rather sorry comparison with those ruling at the corresponding sales in recent years, they do provide a crumb of comfort for growers. They marked what it is reasonable to assume is the turn J of the tide. The fall in prices from the commencement of the season conj tinued so steadily that people were commencing to wonder if it was ever ' going to stop, and what the outcome of it would be. At the Dunedin sale some days ago there was a more hopeful * atmosphere, but the change was not pronounced enough to warrant much £ optimism. At Timaru last week the j, signs were a little better, but at j. Christchurch this week they were better still. It is quite true that the ( actual advance in values is slight, but , the freedom of the competition and , the general demand for wool from ho i many quarters were factors that justify j some mitigation of the lugubrious fore- ( bodiogs that we have had to listen to of late. The better tone in the London and Australian markets is a very hopeful indication that the pendulum is now swinging back to normal and that the production of wool will speedily regain a payable price, though the cause of the sharp turn for the better is obsenre. Possibly the reduction of the bank rate at Home may have been a factor, as textile manufacture in England is entirely dependent on helpful finance; or it may simply be that the product had touched a price below which it would be ruinous to continue to produce ft, and that manufacturers were well aware of this fact. For years wo have heard of Bradford's inability to pay the prices ruling for raw material and to manufacture it at a profit. That excuse is now gone, and the trade in that centre should be in a position to regain something of its lost position in the manufacturing world. In one important respect recent developments have come to the manufacturers' assistance. Numbers of artificial wool companies in , both the United Kingdom and the Continent have sustained, staggering losses. Qpe in England, of which we have the figures by us, records a loss in twenty months of £196,300; another has sustained a loss of £72,000; a third has dropped £34,400 in fourteen months, and of its capital of £1,830,000 calls amounting to £473,000 are unpaid. In France the experience of artificial wool organisations has been ( somewhat similar. It may be bad form tp rejoice over such misfortunes, but the excuse is that these happenings < will bring nearer the time when the * people will revert to the use of the best * article. 1