SHORTAGE OF SHIPS

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2673, 20 January 1916, Page 6

SHORTAGE OF SHIPS

WELLINGTON WOOL SALE POSTPONED. Owing to the shortage of steamer space available for tho carriage of wool, the Wellington woolbrokers have decided to postpone the January sale, which should have been held on 'fesday noxt. ' The date of the next sale will be fixed as soon as tonnage is in sight. For tliis sale tho catalogue comprised 37,500 bales, a record offering, and all this wool is stored ton, causing serious inconvenience and congestion. In future, sales will bo held at intervals, as ships are available, until the season's clip is cleared. Usually this is done in March, but this year tho wool will not all be in ships until much later. As ,soon as it became evident that nothing like enough 6pace would ho available to carry all the wool catalogued for the January sale, some 37,500 bales, tho woolbrokers made a proposal that a' sale should still be held with a limited offering of 10,000 bales. This proposal was not, however, favourably received by the wool-buyers. Their reasons for rejecting the proposal are perfectly sound. All the space now in sight is required for wool already purchased at Invercargill and Timaru. After these sales should have como tho Dunedin sale, but that sale was postponed, and the buyers say, fairly enough, that the claims of Dunedin should l come before those of Wellington, seeing that' the Dunedin sale was originally fixed to take placo before the AVellington sale. As scon as there is space enough in sight, tlie postponed sales will be held in their proper order, and Wellington will have to take its tiirn after Dunedin. So it will be, no doubt, with tho other centres : «■ NAPIER SALE POSTPONED. By Telegraph—Prete Association. Napier, January 19. A further stage iu tno wool crisis occurred to-day, when another meeting of the Napier Woolbrokers' Associationwas held to consider a reply from Mr. Hill, chairman of the New Zealand Woolbuyers' Association. Mr. Hill regretted that the shortage of ships was so serious that-buyers positively could not attend tho sale scheduled to be held at Napier on January. 28. The meeting came to the decision that there was no. alternative but to postpone the sale until further arrangements could be made.

The association has sent the following telegram to the Prime Minister:— "Owing to the crisis in shipping having caused the postponement of all the New Zealand wool sales, we consider, in the interests of tho farming and mercantile community, that a definite statement should be made by tlie Government giving the actual position and prospect of space available for wool in the near future."