A REDUCED CLIP

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 58, 6 September 1938, Page 14

A REDUCED CLIP

VARIOUS ESTIMATES

(From "The Post's" Representative.) SYDNEY, August 27. There is growing feeling among experts in the wool trade here that the drop in the wool production of New South Wales this year will be much more than was officially estimated last June by the joint conference of the Australian Woolgrowers' Council and the National Council of Woolselling Brokers. The decrease estimated then was 12-& per cent., or approximately 200,000 bales. Many experts now believe that it will probably be about 20 per cent. Reports are still to come from other districts where, especially in the central west and south-west, the drought was most severe. It is anticipated that in these districts the sheep numbers will be decidedly lower and that the sheep will cut very light. Actual drought losses are not yet known, but it is known that in these districts the lambing was a failure. The controlling bodies stated in June that the estimates were unusually difficult this year, owing to the dry seasonal conditions in New South Wales. New South Wales is the key State of the wool industry, having approximately half the sheep of Australia. The Australian wool production for 1938-39 was estimated in June at 2,970,000 bales. There is a carry-over from last sellingseason of 233,000 bales, but some of this has since been sold privately. If the June estimate proves approximately correct, then Australia will have about as much wool to offer in the coming season as it sold last year, as the carry-over will balance the decrease in production.