WOOL MARKETING

Greymouth Evening Star, 31 July 1933, Page 5

WOOL MARKETING

PRICE FIXING OPPOSED. (BY CABLE —PRESS ASSN. —COPYRIGHT.] SYDNEY, July 30. Mr Andrew 'Williamson, at the Australian Estates Mortgage Coy. meeting, quoted extensively as to inquiries into the costs of wool protection. He said he welcomed as wise, the decisions against the suggested attempt to fix wool prices. Any artificial measures seeking to raise, the prices by withholding the producers’ offerings would be extremely dangerous. He declared that the idea of arbitrarily fixing selling prices was economically unsound. There should be three objectives in any effort to restore Australia’s key industry. The first was to cut down all of the controllable costs to a minimum consistent with efficiency, while pressing the various Governments in their own interests to reduce their expenditures. Secondly there was the encouragement of research relating to pastures and the standards of flocks. Thirdly, they must continue to accept the market prices. The salcrifices that Australia had made to adjust her internal conditions to the catastrophic fall in the prices of her products deserved the highest praise. He referred to the high rates of interest being paitd on the Australian loans now awaiting conversion at London, and pointed out that this conversion might have been done profitably in 1930 if St had not been for Mr J. T. Lang’s attitude regarding repudiation. In this way, alone, Australia had had to pay an additional four or five millions yearly in the past three years.