BRIGHTER PROSPECTS

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 50, 22 November 1930, Page 15

BRIGHTER PROSPECTS

Wool Industry Development

CHEAPER FINISHED GOODS

One of the most encouraging developments in connection with the wool industry (writes a correspondent of the London “Morning I’ost”) is the fact that the fall in the value of the raw material, and cuts in conversion costs, are beginning to be reflected in appreciable reductions in the price of the finished article. About the only consolation pastoralists and wool industrialists have had during a prolonged period of depression has been the belief that, even if long delayed, sbme compensation would arise when a season’s wool production, liquidated at the lowest rates in the post-war period, set up a more attractive standard of clothin" prices, and ..possibly improving raw material prices as well as mill activity. Obviously some time must elapse before the great clips of the Southern Hemisphere nialie their appearance before, the public in the form of clothing materials, but, fortunately, there are at length indications that the cheap wool of last season is becoming available as the most reasonablypriced manufactures seen in the post-war period. It would seem credible that the depressing events of recent times are leading up to a splendid opportunity for the wool industry. Sixty-four’s Botany tops, which, it may be explained to the layman, constitute almost the highest grade of wool prepared for spinning—really a luxury article —are now at the extremely low price of 2/- per lb., and other grades are correspondingly cheap. Conditions now favour a big output of first-rate goods at such low prices that, provided the public gain the advantage to which it is entitled, the failure of a wool industry revival to mature will be remarkable.