The Marketing of Wool.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 19888, 27 March 1930, Page 10

The Marketing of Wool.

It is unfortunately true, as Mr H. D. Acland said at the Dominion Conference of the New Zealand Farmers' Union in Wellington, that New Zealand alone, as one of the smaller wool-producing countries of the world, can do very little to influence the market price of wool by setting up a wool board or by any similar device to protect the interests of the growers. Such action to be even partly effective would have to be taken jointly with other countries, controlling a substantial proportion of the world's total supply. Even then it is doubtful if any real and permanent good would result from holding back wool clips to improve prices; for one consequence would inevitably be to strengthen the very competition which has accentuated the woolgrower's difficulty. New Zealand's natural ally in any plan of marketing control to improve prices is of course Australia; but Australia cannot afford to hold her wool. Her need for London credits is too pressing. There is, however, a direction in which effort may more hopefully be turned; and should be. It has been recommended by Mr Bernard Tripp, through the columns of The Press and at meetings of growers, and has been widely approved. A small levy on wool, to provide for advertising and for research, would handsomely justify itself. It is an old-fashioned notion that good wine needs no bush, and an oldfashioned, unprofitable notion that wool will sell itself. It will not, while competitors skilfully commend the qualities of their substitutes to the public, and those of wool, which have nothing to fear from the comparison, are left to recall themselves to the public's memory, without reminder. At least it will not, in those conditions, or in any conditions which deprive it of the advantage of equal and equally attractive publicity, sell up to its full meriting. At the same time there is a good deal that -can be done by research. The laboratory has well served the competition against wool; it can serve the wool industry equally well in defence and counter-attack. As Thb Press has on several occasions pointed out, the present low price of wool is in one respect an opportunity, which should be boldly grasped. No time can be more favourable to a campaign to re-popularise wool than a time when'it is cheap. We have already seen one sign of this in the cabled reports—from France, particularly — that some of the manufacturers of substitutes have been hard hit by the fall in wool prices; but it would be foolish to wait for the situation to mend itself. Wool-growers, especially if they secure the co-operation of the manufacturers, can turn their present situation to excellent account by acting promptly, energetically, and together. If they merely Avatch the situation, in the hope of its developing prosperously without their doing anything to make 1 sure of it, they will be continuing in an error which is partly responsible for their present insecurity.