DELAYED WOOL DELIVERIES

Evening Star, Issue 26000, 15 January 1947, Page 5

DELAYED WOOL DELIVERIES

N.Z. MIGHT LOSE ITS MARKETS CANADIAN WARNING (P.A.) AUCKLAND, Jan. 14. The grave economic danger to the Dominion in the delaying of wool shipments from New Zealand was strongly emphasised by Mr' L. Biggins, president of the Canadian Wool Company Ltd., top makers, of Toronto, and of Willey-Biggins Wool Service Incorporated, wool importers, of Boston, who arrived by Tasman Empire Airways flying boat to-day from Sydney. Mr Biggins intends to spend about a month in New Zealand renewing prewar connections in the wool trade and attending wool sales. “If the present shipping delays continue, overseas buyers will simply have to look elsewhere for their wool,” said Mr Biggins. “It is no use buying wool which cannot be delivered in reasonable time, and we will have to go either to Australia, where the shipping position is not the best, but is better than in New Zealand at present, or to South America. My firms have wool lying here which we bought months ago. This does not encourage buying, as it represents 1 money tied up, and, in spite of Canada’s protective tariff against it, we may be forced to turn to South America for supplies. . “The Government here should be very concerned if the present situation goes much further, because wool is an important export,” Mr Biggins said. “If the sales stop, the country will be left with a season’s dip on its hands.” There were alternative sources of supply available, Mr Biggins said,the- most likely being Uruguay, where wool was most nearly- equivalent, to the types produced by the Dominion, The clip there was now coming on to the market, and, while there was no surplus, the wool was there to be bought. The possibility of earlier- delivery would tend to’ offset any rise ■in price - above the Dominion levels. Ample supplies were available in the Argentine, and he knew of cases where seven to eight years’ clips of low-grade cross-bred wool were on hand.