AMERICAN WOOL DUTY

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25246, 26 July 1947, Page 9

AMERICAN WOOL DUTY

25 PER CENT. CUT FORECAST (Red. 8.50 p.m.) NEW YORK, July 24. A forecast that an executive order will be issued making a 25 per cent, cut in the wool import duty as soon as the new Wool Bill is passed is made by the Boston correspondent of the “Journal of Commerce.” The Wool Bill did not, as was expected, come up in the House of Representatives to-day because of pressure of other business in the last week of the session. The bill would guarantee American growers a Government purchase price averaging 42.3 cents per lb during the remainder of 1947 and all 1948. It would also permit the Commodity Credit Corporation to sell 460,000,0001 b of low-grade wool from the stockpile owned by the Government at prices in competition with comparable grades of imported wool. The Senate on June 26 approved the present bill, which omits the controversial provision empowering the President to impose import quotas or fees additional to the existing duty. This was included in the original legislation which Mr Truman vetoed. Mr C. J. Fawcett, general manager of the National Wool Marketing Corporation, which represents over 50,000 growers in 22 states, told the Boston correspondent of the Australian Associated Press that the predicted 25 per cent, cut in the duty on imported wool would sound the death-knell of the domestic wool industry. “The domestic wool industry has declined 35 per cent, in the last five years, and the number of lambs has decreased by 8,600,000,” he said. “The present duty of 34 cents a clean content pound does not offset the difference in the cost of production in Australia and the United States. “Until recently, 85 per cent of all wool used by American manufacturers was of foreign origin, so why reduce the import duty? Further, the United States is probably the best market the British Empire can find to sell shopworn stocks accumulated during the war.”