REDUCTION IN PRICE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 11 September 1945, Page 2

REDUCTION IN PRICE

CERTAIN CROSSBRED WOOLS NEW ZEALAND GROWER NOT AFFECTED (Rec. 10.5 a.m.) London. Sept. 10. The price of certain crossbred wools will be reduced on Ist November, it is officially announced. These reductions do not affect in any way the price to the Dominion grower or the price at which wool is available for export in any form but apply only to that portion of British manufacturers’ wool ration which is used for goods actually consumed inside Britain. This last-mentioned wool price level has been subsidised by British authorities in the interests of keeping down the domestic cost of living. Prices at which British manufacturers obtained their wool for home civil trade have remained unchanged since November. 1940. so that when the alterations take effect they will have been in force for exactly five years which is almost certainly a world record for wool price stability. Reductions, which range from 3id to ?d per pound in clean, scoured and combing types are as follows: 50’s, carded, from 26id to 24Jd; 48’s. average. carded, from 24Jd to 22£d 48’s. hog, from 25\d to 23id; 44's, prepared, from 23d to 21 d. In the clothing type of wools New Zealand second pieces of 44-48 quality are reduced from 20i}d to 19d: New Zealand average crutchings of 44-48 quality, from 22£d to 20Jd. There are corresponding reductions in comparable types of British wool and in tops made from all these wools. No official explanation is given for these changes, but trade circles consider it is improbable that the re rr.oval of war charges is responsible as this would be expected to affect the prices of all types and merinos do not figure in the reductions. The more probable explanation is that this may represent an attempt to restore the normal commercial relationship of values as between one type of wool and another which may have become somewhat distorted under war conditions.