WOOL STABILITY

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 196, 15 May 1940, Page 12

WOOL STABILITY

Australian Position

Wool appraisements, in Australia, plus the limited quantities sold ■ privately before the war, arc estimated to produce £58,500,000 in the 1939-40 season. This compares with £42,541,000 in 1938-39. For the increase of 40 per cent, the. factors responsible are the higher average price of 13.4375(1. a lb. paid lor the clip under the British purchase scheme, and a larger production. Only three times during the past 10 years,' the annual wool review of Wincheombe, Carson, Ltd., states, has this season’s contract price been exceeded —IbAd. in 1933-34, 14.2 d. in 1935-30. and IG.i ld. in 1930-37. , It is estimated that the clip tor the year ending June 30 next will be 3,400,000 bales, a record quantity, to which a carry-over at June 30, 1939. adds 110,345 bales. It compares with 3.219,000 bales for the previous season. The review stresses that wartime exigencies have resulted in price stability in the pastoral industry, applying not only to the clip, but also, to a large degree, to the value of mutton, lamb and beet. "The prompt acquisition of the clip on the outbreak of the war," it states, ‘assisted materially in curbing financial nervousness in Australia. At the commencement of the 1914-18 war the wool market was paralysed. Revenue from the clip ceased, and when auctions commenced in November only small catalogues were submitted. Auction and private sales in Sydney from jljOy 1 b> Christinas, 1914. were only 125.572 bales, worth approximately £1,600.000. . the 1939 total for the period was M3.81J bales, valued at more than six tunes that total.”