AUSTRALIAN, SOUTH AFRICAN REACTIONS

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30219, 26 August 1963, Page 13

AUSTRALIAN, SOUTH AFRICAN REACTIONS

South African woolgrowers have virtually agreed to meet their share of the new £l3m budget sought by the International Wool Secretariat to promote wool. This was reported by Mr R. G. Lund, regional director of the secretariat for Europe, when be arrived in Christchurch on Saturday. Mr Lund said that the four growers’ congresses in South Africa had agreed to a levy which would be equivalent to 56s 3d a bale (Australian currency).

In Australia Mr Lund spoke to nine meetings of woolgrowers in Queensland and eight meetings in Victoria and to the Australian Wool Board about the need for the additional funds required by the secretariat He arrived in Australia the day after the chairman of the Australian Wool Board (Sir William Gunn) had had eggs thrown at him at a meeting of growers at Hamilton in Victoria. Mr Lund said that no-one had thrown eggs at him. On the contrary, the meetings he had addressed had been very orderly and sympathetic. His experience had been that the growers who had come to hear the case for the increased budget were already convinced.

Mr Lund said that he was convinced that if the case for the increased budget was presented to Australian woolgrowers in the right way they would accept it. A special problem there was that while the levy on growers had recently been 10s a bale (Australian), Australia had been spending 22s 9d a bale on promotion and research, with the balance being found out of reserves.

The proposal now was to put the levy up to 44s (Australian) a bale. This appeared to growers to be an increase of 440 per cent, but if account was taken of the reserves which belonged to the growers the new requirement represented only a doubling. Delay Suggested

A section of the growers in Australia felt that if they agreed to a levy of this order it would prejudice any chance of a change in the system of marketing, which might involve the collection of funds for its financial backing. They therefore wanted a decision on the prosnotion issue delayed until a committee of the Australian Wool Board which was investigating marketing had a chance to report. Mr Lund said that the answer of the secretariat to this was that the committee investigating marketing was sitting now, and even if it reported before the beginning of the wool-selling season in 1964 it would take time to set up any organisation and it could not operate until 1965. Such a delay in collecting extra funds for promotion was regarded as dangerous, when promotion was considered urgent