BRADFORD WOOL TRADE

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17097, 21 February 1916, Page 4

BRADFORD WOOL TRADE

[From Our Correspondent.] BRADFORD, December 24. As we anticipated in our last letter, values all round have now regained, or exceeded, the high level of June, and the probabilities are that they may go still higher. The trade is beset with many difficult problems all heading towards further additions to quoted prices. In London, at the closing series of the year, there has been extraordinary competition not only for good combing wools but for inferior sorts. and this fact, coupled with what is happening in Australia and New Zealand, is giving rise to a good deal of discussion as to whether or not the Government .should look further into the facilities for export trade and consider the advisability of reimposing stringent restrictions. America continues to buy keenly and this in itself has a good deal to do with the upward tendency. There are some who will have it that all the wool that is going to America is not for current trade, but is being held for sale at a big profit to hungry Germany at the conclusion of the war. That view is not generally accepted, but is being pushed for all it is worth by those who would like to-see a modification of outside competition in the primary markets. There is ample evidence that there is in the United States a very extensive and genuine trade bom. Apart from rising raw material values the trade has other problems to face. There is an abundance of business; indeed, topmakers and spinners are so well booked up for months ahead that most of them are refusing further to extend their obligations. The output is greatly restricted owing to shortage of labour and quite an agitation has sprung up in favour of a more extensive substitution of women for men in tha "textile industry, in view of the prospective calling up of the thousands of employees who have enlisted in the Army Reserve under Lord' Derby's scheme. The men's unions are inclined to resist this development in certain branches of the industry, notably night woolcombing, and there promises to be quite a tussle over it. Then again the woolcombers, woolsorters and warehousemen are putting forward an application for a further advance of 15 ner cent in wages, and if they are able to carry their point it will probably mean a'further increase in the charges lor combing. Such points as these | create uncertainties with regard to the j future and have something to do with the protective advances swhich topmakers recently have made. j Last week practically all the leading J firms put up their quotations for me- | rino tops to the extent of 2d per lb, j and this puts some qualities above the j Juno level- It is now almost impossible to find available stocks of either merino or cross-bred tops available for quick delivery, and users who have not covered their needs for the next two or three months will probably find themselves in a. quandary later on. Spinners have been almost overwhelmed, with orders for dress goods, coatings and hosiery purposes, and the now year will open with raw material values skyhigh and the demand for tops and yarns far H excess of machinery capacity. ,

The average prices ruling on the market days named were as follows:

Dec. Deo. Dee. Dec. 13 1G 20 23 Mcrinocs— d. d. d. d. 7ft's . 13 45 45 45 GO's super . . 12 44 14 Go's ordinary. . 41 42J 42§ 421 GO's B.A. . . Nom inn! CrrBs-brcds — 58's . 40 40 40 40 56's , . 3!> 36J 36^ 36J cO's . m 33 S3 33 46's . 2P op J, 25). OCli 40's • 26* hi 26J opi SO's . . . 25*. 55 V 2" 255 32's . 21* 21i 24121J Lnoln— Hoseota . ISA 19 19 m Wether- . \?i 182 WJ 38J Kent wothcrfi . . 31J 2li 21* 21}