LONDON WOOL SALES

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26117, 20 May 1950, Page 9

LONDON WOOL SALES

HIGH PRICES FOR N.Z. SCOURED (N .Z.P.A.—Reuter—Copyright) , LONDON, May 18. High prices for scoured wools shipped on grow-ers’ account from the South Island were offered at the London wool sales to-day when the catalogue included 9000 V^la/ S^^ rom ew Zealand. Best price was nr £ er lb for eight bales of A A Merino fleece from the Otematata station whl S h had been handled at the Waihi scouring works Next came 133 d for 15 bales of Merino K^ e w t , he Haldon Station, scoured by W H. Cook and Sons, at Fairlie. Nineteen bales of pieces from this clip and 1- bales of bellies realised 123 d and 120’od respectively. beBt price was 132 d f br a small lot from the Dunvegan stud at Cave. Halfbred wools sold equally well, and X^ ven * l bale , s r of super combing wethers from the Mount Dalgety Station, which mm b l en > scoured at Fairlie, realised of bellies from this clip sold at IOOd. .There was widespread competition on tnese and other consignments from Home trade users of specialty wools, who expressed their pleasure at finding their requirements available again on the London market. Prices for greasy wools ruled very firm on recent advanced rates and were sometimes a shade dearer. The bulk of the offering was in medium crossoreds which were in good demand on both. Home trade and Continental acoffering greasy half«°l d P an<rhere prices AUSTRALIA’S RECORD SALES HIGH PRICES AT BRISBANE (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) w . \ SYDNEY, May 19. Wool sold in Australia in the first 10 curren * season realised x 231.800,000—an increase of £74.100,000. or 47 per cent, over the corresponding period la st reason- This figure is an increase of £37,200,000, or 19 per cent, on the cheque for the whole of last season, which was a record. At the Brisbane sales yesterday a record for Australia and New Zealand was established when 56 bales of scoured wool realised 184 d per lb. The highest price for greasy wool was 134Jd per lb for 11 bales. The offering of 15,734 bales was fully cleared. BRADFORD TOPS QUOTATIONS (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, May 18. Bradford tops quotations are as under:— Merinos, 70’s, 170 d per lb; 64’s, 162 d; 60’s, 148 d. Crossbreds: 56’s, 96d; 50’s, 73d; 46’s, 70d. BUSINESS FAILURES OVERSEAS RISING TREND «NOT ALARMING ” Business failures—a measure of the state of. a country’s economy—have risen suddenly in the United States and Britain. They reached a post-war high level in 1949. But this trend is not alarming when compared with the vastly expanded company population since the war ended While the failures mean a definite indication of a tightening up in the world business pattern—with a weeding out of the inefficient—the rise in the company death toll is held to be a natural consequence of the thousands of new firms set up in the "bonanza” days after the war. Accordingly, the jump in the United Kingdom from 345 company liquidations in 1948 to 503 in 1949, and 5250 for 1948 in America to 9240, is not as disturbing as it appears first glance, says the “Manchester Guardian.” Last year the number of company liquidations rose well above the pre-war level in Britain, but that does not mean that companies were struggling harder against insolvency than before the war. On the whole the figures indicate that the path of business is smoother than it was in the 1930’5. English commentators attribute the rise in company liquidations to the new firms set up in 1946-47 and managed by people with little experience in business. The situation in America bears a striking similarity to the United Kingdom but on a much grander scale. The big list of failures in 1949 is not alarming when it is remembered that tens of thousands of new businesses started since 1945. Furthermore, the 1949 number is still 32 per cent, under the 13,619 failures listed for 1940. In 1940 there were 63 liquidations for each 10,000 firms in business—the number dropped to 34 in 1949. The retail and mining fields showed the heaviest losses, according to the New York “Herald Tribune.” Over 90 per cent, of business failures are the result of inefficient management or inexperience—agreeing with the English conclusion.