G00D PROSPECTS WOOL CONSUMPTION

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 156, 30 December 1944, Page 5

GOOD PROSPECTS WOOL CONSUMPTION

ENCOURAGING POINTERS (Special P.A. Correspondent.) LONDON, Dec. 28. • The hew Year outlook for wool as seen m Britain has encouraging pointers for increased consumption. Commercial circles believe that any diminution in wool consumption on war account" here will be balanced by increased consumption for civilian purposes at home and abroad and that Britain's output of civilian wool goods will be expanded rapidly 'as the exigencies of war and the supply of labour permit. J After some years of rigorous clothes rationing in Britain, which normally consumes more wool per head of population than any other nation, individual wardrobes are now so depleted that the need for an improved rate of replenishment is generally agreed. This demand, added to which are the rehabilitation needs of Europe and the call for increased commercial fSPT.Kk'^Britain in wool goods, should keep British textile machinery fully employed as available labour makes possible, even, though some European nations should be able partly to satisfy their own •-' needs. The f^-l trend °f European wool consump uon is therefore believed to be upward m so far as the overriding needs of war permit. . * s The United States Government forecasts that American wool consumption in 1945 will fall under that of 1944 because civil demands are not expected to balance the decline in military ■ 1 IS: J .,The Probable reason for that is that the United States has not been rationed in clothes as severely as Britain and has not similar clothing arrears to make good. Nevertheless the United States expects her early post-war wool need to exceed .her domestic wool production by 300,000,000 lb to 400,000,0001b per annum. This is welcome news for wool exporting countries. CONTROL OF PRICES. The- American Department of Agriculture says this favourable outlook is offset by extremely large world supplies which are regarded as potentially capable of depressing world wool values. However, the Department points out that four-fifths of the wool carry-over outside the United States is owned by the British Government and expresses the view that prices of that wool will be controlled ' during the period of liquidation. The wool trade m Britain endorses that view and believes that regulated marketing of Government-owned wool surpluses alongside post-war Dominion production will be carried out in a way which does not allow values to' be depressed below a reasonable economic level. The trade in Bradford takes a soberly optimistic view of the world wool outlook and believes that as the war clouds lift there will develop a substantial demand to fill, the-world's empty shelves; New Zealand producers will note with particular interest that South American crossbred wool holders apparently take, a similar view, for advices arriving in Bradford indicate that Argentine growers anticipate a strong Continental demand when the. European war ends and are holding for a post-war market when they are unable to make satisfactory1 prices today.