Costs up, wool down ‘disturbing’

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32430, 17 October 1970, Page 3

Costs up, wool down ‘disturbing’

(N.Z. Press Association) HAMILTON, Oct 16. The fall in prices for wool at the first sale in Auckland on Wednesday was a “most disturbing trend” in view of recent substantial increases in costs, said the chairman of Waikato Federated Farmers meat and and wool section (Mr M. O. Loughnan) today. “This only emphasises the need for every endeavour to be made to contain the cost spiral,” he said. It had been suggested in “certain quarters” that there might be an increase in wool handling charges by the brokers. “This would be yet another burden the sheep farmer would have to bear, aggravating further an intolerable economic situation,” Mr Loughnan said. The general manager of the Wool Commission (Mr H. L. M. Peirse) was yesterday reported as saying that the commission was fighting a “rearguard action.” It was applying price reserves to impede the price fall as much as possible, and carrying out its dual responsibility of reducing the wool stockpile without depressing the market The commission passed in a third of its offering of 6455 bales at the Auckland sale, the largest passing the commission has made for some time. The commission now has less than half its original stockpile of wool left—--330,000 bales out of a peak stockpile of 707,000 bales.