The Draft Allowance on Wool

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22418, 3 June 1938, Page 12

The Draft Allowance on Wool

Though it was most vehemently put, the latest protest of the British Wool Federation over the abolition of the draft allowance on wool has not impressed Australian growers, and ought not to impress New Zealand grow-, ers. In February, members of the federation agreed that the federation executive should take when it thought fit any appropriate action to protect members’; interests, and the threat of a boycott, mentioned in the cable news, is apparfently theresult.' Legislation has been passed in New Zealand giving the Government power to abolish the draft allowance by Ofder-in-Council,- arid similar action has been taken in all the Australian-states. It is intended at present that the abolition shall apply simultaneously in-:the' Commonwealth and New Zealand from' the beginning ! of next month, the

commencement of the new Australian season. The draft allowance is a very old custom in the wool trade of the Dominions, but its age does not make it admirable. In the early days the weight of wool arriving in England from the colonies was a source of constant argument between the English broker and the grower or his agent, and as the English buyer was almost the only buyer of colonial wools, he was usually able to get his way. That inaccuracies in the stated weights of bales of wool did occur nobody would deny, as appliances for weighing in the early days were more often than not extremely primitive, and the long ocean passages in small ships might also make detectable differences. The draft allowance was then adopted at the instance of the buyers, and was agreed to by the growers because it meant the end of disputes which often prolonged the already long time between the shipment of the wool and the receipt of payment for it. Now, however, the situation is entirely different. Before it leaves the grower’s hands, wool is weighed, and in most cases weighed accurately. It is again weighed into the broker’s store, and still again out of the broker’s store, on both occasions on the most modern and carefully tended appliances. The wool is finally weighed after it is dumped just before shipment. The original weighing is thus checked three times, with the result that the margin of error is negligible. The draft allowance amounts to 1 per cent., or one pound in a hundred, which in the season just concluded would mean about 3s a bale, but in a good season, such as the previous one, about 4s '6d a bale. This amount may not appear large, but on the value of the wool sold at this year’s auctions in New Zealand it meant a reduction in the growers’ receipts of more than £87,000. The reduction to growers in New Zealand and Australia would amount to little less than £ 500,000, To the individual grower in New Zealand, the draft allowance means a reduction on the average of something more than £lO in his cheque. There appears to be little opposition to the removal of the allowance among Continental or Japanese buyers, and this consideration will probably induce the majority of the members of the British Federation to vote against a boycott in the questionnaire which is to be submitted to them.