B.A.W.R.A. WOOL.

Northern Advocate, 31 July 1924, Page 7

B.A.W.R.A. WOOL.

THE FINAL WORD

Sir Arthur Goldfinch in his final

word upon the "wool control scheme which ended with the last sale of B.A.W.R.A. wool at Liverpool on May 2, makes it clear that if it had not been for the war Great Britain would never have bought any raw wool. The needs of the services at last compelled action, and a time came when it was not possible, with safety, to allow prices to be regulated by the law of supply and demand.

I .Sir Arthur Goldfinch asserts that throughout the 'wool control the business done by both sides-yby Great Britain and by the selling dominions —was with the desire to be fair and j just. To secure cash payments for the I wool was an important concession, not only to the pastoralists, but also to all New Zealand. The enormous accumulations -of wool which lay in the Dominion warehouses right up to the end of 1920, afforded evidence of the difficulties that would have been occasioned in the selling of the wool by the Dominions had it not been bought by the British Government. Unlike sugar or wheat which could be dealt with by shipload, every package of wool was different from the other and had to be accounted for. If particulars of sale were allowed for, it was safe to say that more than 100,000,000 separate particulars had g}one througfh. the books, every one of which was indispensable for the correct working of the business. In the circumstances it was satisfactory to know that administrative charges had not exceeded f per cent, of the sale, or under 2d in the £. Accuracy had been unsparingly pursued, and in that respect no business house could show a better record than the British Wool Department. The Australian section tallied out correctly. The London administration had sorrowfully to admit that owing to confusion arising in shipments early in 1020, when hundreds of thousands of bales arrived in London without correct bills of lading, there would probably be out of 10,000,000 bales handled, an ultimate discrepancy of 30 or 40 bales.