WOOL IN NEW ZEALAND.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20648, 10 September 1932, Page 8

WOOL IN NEW ZEALAND.

empire marketing BOARD'S SURVEY. The Empire Marketing Board, in its wool survey which has just been.issued, gives the sheep population of New Zealand at around 30 million. This total is double that of forty years ago, and is equal to the sheep population of the United Kingdom. The wool clip is now over 200 million lb. The great bulk is exported, and most of it goes to the United Kingdom. A much higher proportion of the total export goes from New Zealand to the United Kingdom than goes to Great Britain from Australia or South Africa. But the proportion taken by the United Kingdom is not so high as it was, and the quantity re-exported has risen. France has now replaced Germany as the largest continental importer of wool from New Zealand. . . „ The survey gives the facts about all the wool producing countries in the world. The World's Wool.

Nearly one-half of the world's raw wool, and over two-thirds of the wool entering world trade, is produced within the British Empire. These facts are revealed in the report. The world's sheep population is estimated at nearly 800 million head, of which about onethird are in the Empire. They produce between 3500 and 4000 million lb of wool per annum, and of this amount about 1500 million lb, including much of the best wool in the world, comes from the British Dominions of Australia, the Union of South Africa, and New Zealand. Among the other important producing areas, consisting of South America, the United States of America, and Russia, only South America has a surplus for export. The United States of America is largely self-sufficing as regards merino and crossbred wools, but imports carpet wools ; r Russia produces almost entirely carpet wools, and imports both the finer wools and wools of the carpet type. Neither of these countries seems likely to assume any importance in the near future as an exporter of raw wool. After reviewing the development of the sheep population, the wool production, and the wool trade of each of the principal countries concerned, together with the course of raw "wool prices over the past 40 years, the survey reaches the following conclusions: —

No Over-Production. There has been no exceptional increase in the sheep population or the wool production of the world in recent years; indeed, between 1928 and 1930, there appears to have been a small decrease in wool production, and although the year 1931, according to the partial estimates at present available, probably witnessed an increase in production over 1930, it is not anticipated that the record level of 1928 will be appreciably exceeded. British Empire countries have maintained their share of the world's sheep population at about one-third, and their share of the world's production of raw wool at about one-half. In the export trade, in which the share of Empire countries is over twothirds of the world total, there has been, on the whole, littlo variation since 1926 in the consignment of raw wool from producing to manufacturing countries, and there would appear to be no abnormally large accumulation of stocks of raw wool in the principal exporting countries. At the end of the 1930-31 season, when stocks in certain of the

principal producing areas were higher than usual, they still formed only a very email part of the aggregate annual production. No large stocks have been allowed to accumulate through efforts to maintain prices, and proposals to restrict the sales or stabilise the prices of raw , wool have been vigorously opposed. In conclusion, the survey states:— "A period of severe and widespread economic depression generally results in an immediate and substantial decrease in demand for wool through the postponement of the purchase of new garments, and, in consequence, wool prices generally tend to suffer more quickly and more acutely than commodity prices taken as a whole, but once the lower price has been attained, consumption rapidly tends to regain its previous level. Conversely, on account of the .inelasticity of the wool supply, an improvement in the general economic situation tends to produce a relatively swift advance in wool prices, and it may accordingly be anticipated that wool will' be one of the first commodities to benefit from any such improvement."