WOOL PRICES

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 67, 20 March 1943, Page 6

WOOL PRICES

REPLY TO MR. ROBERTS

"In his statement on the wool question Mr. B. Roberts; M.P., made reference to the average wool price from 1927-28 to 1938-39, saying that the price had increased by nearly 50 per cent.,' said Mr. A. P. O'Shea, Dominion Secretary of the New Zealand Farmers' Union, yesterday. "What should be pointed out is that during the period Mr. Roberts referred to, there were five years of slump prices. Also it should not be forgotten that today the value of money is nominally 25 per cent, less than it was in most of those years, and the real value of money is considerably lower than that. It should also be remembered that in 1939 the plight of the sheep industry was such that the Government set up a Royal Commission to investigate the condition of the industry, and to report on it

"Having regard to these facts it will be obvious that a very great improvement in "the returns tor the industry's products was urgently necessary, otherwise the position of sheepfarming would have been very serious indeed. There is no need to point out the effect that such a state of affairs would have had on the economic position of the Dominion had it continued. In actual point of fact, for the five years of slump prices referred to the return to woolgrowers was back to, and even below, the disastrous level of the 1920-22 slump. Under these circumstances it can hardly be argued that the commandeer price is 'exceptionally generous.'"