THE WOOL COMMANDEER PRICES

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 125, 19 February 1921, Page 7

THE WOOL COMMANDEER PRICES

Sir, —In looking more closely into the information afforded by tho Produce Department, which appeared in a recent issue of your paper, one is forced to the conclusion that the Australian wool commandeer advance of 2s. per lb., on all descriptions, crossbred as well as merino, was a clean cut and businesslike transaction, so unlike our New Zealand contract, over which so many political, as well as. agricultural and pastoral brains were spilt, resulting in a schedule of separate prices for merinos, halfbred, three-quarter-bred, and fine and coarse crossbred, and compounded from Dominionmade speculative prices for the worse half of our 1913-11 clip. The result, as I have stated, is an average advance of only Is. 3d. per lb. in our case, against wool which realised from 3s. to ss. per lb. at Home, and this complicated schedule, regarded no doubt by its compiler or compilers as a safeguard against the astute brain of the Imperial AVool Commissioner, has come back like a boomerang on the unfortunate wool grower, as we are led to understand that accrued half profits amounting to some seven million pounds sterling are being withheld by the Home Government to meet reclamations on this unsold portion of our coarse wool. We hear nothing, however, of any such difficulty in regard to reclamations on unsold Australian coarse wool; on the contrary, we are told that no less than 900,000 bales of Australian wool have been surrendered, free of charge, and an equal number of unrealised bales retained by the 'Wool Commissioner. I contend, however, from my reading of the commandeer contract, that the Home Government is chargeable with the total loss on any commandeered wool sold at a loss, as there is a separate clause m the contract to meet such a contingency ns has arisen, and if that clause is not applicable to the losses now expected, I don’t know what it alludes to. TuTs most unusual for anyone to audit his own accounts or to check his own work, and as the present High Commissioner is closely connected with these transactions it is only right and fair to the Dominion as a whole, as every man, woman, and child is interested, that he should stand aside and allow the elect of the farmers, chiefly concerned, to examine and report as to whether London or Dominion average prices, with the percentage added, were offered for our wool under commandeer. I find no fault with the commandeer, but do think if a mistake has been made we are entitled to the price the Mool Commissioner intended to'offer, and did offer, more especially as no claim has, s< far as I am aware, been made for un foreseen and unavoidable breaches by him in ’iTs contract with the Dominion Government.-! PRODUCER.