PRODUCE & MARKET REPORTS FROM DAY TO DAY

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 93, 21 April 1931, Page 12

PRODUCE & MARKET REPORTS FROM DAY TO DAY

WOOL PRICES

FIXATION SCHEME

AUSTRALIAN ATTITUDE

'(From "the Post's" Representative.) I ' SYDNEY, 10th April. '"4. determined attempt by a section of wool-growers i» Australia to introduce a price fixation scheme seems doomed to definite defeat now that the New South Wales Graziers' Association, at its annual conference this week, has decided that such a plan would be economically unbound and dangerous. The conierence " carried' by an overwhelming majority the following motion :-"That tins conference is opposed to any- wool stabilisation scheme Which has for its object the fixation ot tho prices of wool." - -One of the leading graziers, Sir Giaham Waddell, in justifying, the policy o£ the Australian Wool-growers'. Council, said that the wool industry was sick now but it .would be a "damn sight sicker it any stabilisation scheme had been adopted. There was no instance in'any .country where an attempt to force up prices had boon successful. Theoretically the fixation oV a price 'looked all right, but finance whs tho trouble. They would have to go 10 the Government for 'the nxing ot a rfininn.m price, and u-us • there ■ anybody atteudiut! the conference who would go to the Government-State or Federalaiul allow it to tinker with the marketing of the wool- clip? At the Empire Conference of wool-growers m Melbourne in .Tame, which would be attended by deleKates from New Zealand and a 1 oihei interested countries, it was hoped that a scheme would be evolved that would be ntlvantageousall round. Sir Graham emphasised the fact that he was a wool raiser, and lie told the conierence irankly that on last year's clip he could, not paj the interest .on "the money .he owed it he-could" see a way out God knew he would grab'it-With both hands. He \vas -that .artificial regulation was rD4 3 C^M? Williams, who moved the motion, said, that in times of prosperity ™S were apathetic, but in a serious ci-isis there was a large number who *ere oßly too willing to support »y ill-advised scheme if it was sugar-coated, as the puce Son scheme was. The .present.position xiru due to a world-wide depression . and it was not peculiar to Australia. It was HUile impossftle.for Australia or any o her country to dictate the price .-of wool to the world, as'-that Price w as governed bV--the law.'oE.supply and demand. The industry, would.be best .served^ if values were'kept .within economic bounds. The fallacy of .'price dictation in any country which was, not the sole producer ■was only: one .road to rehabihtation and that was.'the-adjustment of costs o£ production' to, meet the new conditions.