FINE WOOLS DOWN

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVI, Issue 3446, 22 March 1932, Page 8

FINE WOOLS DOWN

DISAPPOINTING SALE. AUCKLAND PRICES. Top price, 10%d, was secured at the Auckland wool sale on Saturday for nine bales of halfbred wool sold on behalf of Mr. L. F. Ashwin, of Waiheke Island. Top price at the March last season was Hid., while at the opening sale of the present season the top price was lOd and at the January sale it was 11 %d. Owing largely to the heavy quantity of wool withheld from earlier sales the offering on Saturday promised to be an exceptionally large one, 23,130 bales having been catalogued compared with 16,958 at the March sale last year. At the last moment, however, 3714 bales were withdrawn and a large quantity, estimated at from 35 per cent, to 40 per cent, of the remainder, was unsold, being passed in when bidding failed to reach the growers' reserve, which in the majority of cases, was marked down well below the cost of production.

Approximately 10,000 bales which were not sold will be shipped to England in the hope of values improving at the London sales, a material factor being the advantage accruing to the grower from the rate of exchange. The knowledge that Yorkshire woollen mills are again working full time was undoubtedly an influence in Saturday's withdrawals.

There was a good bench of buyers and bidding was very keen within limits, competition always brightening for well-classed top-making wools. A great deal of the bidding, however, commenced at exceptionally low levels and some of the scraggy wools failed even to attract an offer.

France was particularly active, securing a large proportion of the clips, including the bulk of the lambs' wool. Superior wools went chiefly to Bradford and Japan, Germany taking much of the seedy wool. A large gallery of spectators, principally farmers, found little in the sale to please them. Those growers who had held their wool back from the previous sale in the expectation that prices would firm as the season drew to a close, where frankly puzzled by the disappointing turn of events and at a loss to know what course to pursue—ship their wool to London or wait until next season.

Growers whose cost of production is in the neighbourhood of one shilling a pound admitted that they had lost heavily all through the season. Those

whose costs approximate 6d barely covered expenses.

A typical case was that of a King Country farmer who offered 16 bales of crossbred wool at the January sale. They were passed in at 4%d. On Saturday he was compelled to dispose of them for 3*4d. "It will only pay the cost of shearing," he said. "I do not know what I am going to do. It is not only the wool. We are only

getting 5s for store lambs where two years ago the price was anything from 16s to £l."