DEPRESSION AT HOME.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 339, 28 October 1908, Page 7

DEPRESSION AT HOME.

WOOL PROSPECTS. (BT TBLEQIHI'EI —PKES3 iSSOCIATIOH.I Christchurch, October 27. The prospects in tho wool market are not very bright-, according to Mr. Walter Hill, a well-known Christchurch wool broker, who has just returned from a'visit to Great Britain. "I am not going to prophesy in the matter," he said, "but when I' left Home 'two months ago, there was very little prospect of better trado for somo time to come. When tho time comes we shall bo ready to pay the price for tho wool, whatever it is, but until things are settled on a lower level it does not seem that there is much chance of improved 'trade. We have been paying abnormal prices for wool, with the result that buyors had placed themselves in a dangerous position; The reaction was inevitable."

The depression in Britain, added Mr. Hill, seemed to bo very great. Ho knew of one mill in Bradford that was working fifty looms out of ono thousand, and in many places mills wore standing idle or even incomplete, the depression having occurred while they wore being erected. The manufacturers had been willing to carry on and add to stock if'tho operatives would accept a ten per cent, reduction in wages, but tho hands hfl.d refused this. Tho result had been that thousands of men and women were out of employment, and the distress in many places liad becomo ?U!on- A similar condition of affairs had prevailed in tho shipbuilding industry. As recorded by tho cablegrams, the hands had refused to accept a reduction in wages in order that tho employers might carry on in spite of tho depression. The yards had consequently been closed down, and in such centres as Glasgow and Sundorland thousands of men were rendered idle and faced with destitution. Mr. Hill said that he had noticed in a New Zealand newspaper a statement from a Bradford correspondent to the effect that tho fall in wool prices had- been duo to a combination among big firms. "America is by no means out of wool," wrote the correspondent, "although these last two months its wool buyers have made a fair .show. Germany is in a very bad way. Both orders and monoy are exceedingly scarce, and there is a prospect of trouble in the - Lancashire cotton trado, and all theso things aro adverse factors favourable to a 'bear* raid. It is just as well for soiling brokers in the colonies to bo apprised of those tactics in order to shape a programme to defeat the object of those wanting to dislodgo the grower and get down prices." This was absurd, remarked Mr. Hill. The brokers did not want to get down prices. They wanted to get back some of tho money they had already lost.