AUSTRALIA'S WOOL WEALTH.

North Otago Times, 3 December 1910, Page 2 (Supplement)

AUSTRALIA'S WOOL WEALTH.

. The day following King Edward's death the London-iVool Sales proceeded as usual, although most of. the other great markets in the Kingdom were closed. It Is hardly necessary to say that this coursq was not taken by those controlling the sales because of any lack' of respect, but simply because it was found impracticable to defer a business meeting to which buyers had come from all parts of Europe and from America. The circumstance is mentioned here ■in order to indicate the outstanding position which wool occupies in the commerce of the Empire.

Practically all the Australian and, „Capo wools come to the United Kingdom for sale, and as these con-, I stitutc three-fourths of the world's! production London has become the ; greatest wool mart in the world, j It would nob be so without Australia I which now supplies mankind with | two-thirds of the raw material required for woollen wear; lacking this product of the smallest continent a good many of us would suffer much more than we do from cold. On the other hand, sheep are worth much more to Australia than gold is. In an average year its wool clip fetches about £32,000,000, against about £20,000,000, representing the value of Australia's minsrals, including the precious metals.

Looking at the position of Australia upon an ordinary map, you would not think that it could have developed into a great wool-growing

country. It is intersected by the Tropic of Capricorn, and, as most • people, know; sheep do not generally do well within, or in the neighbourhood of, the Tropics. That argument was advanced when, a century ago, John M'Arthur, at one time a lieutenant in New South Wales Corps resigned his commission that he might introduce the merino sheep into his adopted country. His fellow colonists, as well as others less expert, scoilcd at the scheme as that

of a dreamer, and when M'Arthur came home to try to purchase stock for his pet project, he found that he could procure merinos from Spain only at the risk of his neck, At that time it was a capital crime to export the animals alive from any Spanish dominions, and John M'Arthur found himself up against a blank wall unless he chose to turn

sheep smuggler. No doubt he would

have done that if necessary, but it happened that George lll.("Farmer" George) had had a small flock of

pure Spanish merinos presented to him by one of the Spanish Royalties, and from this flock M'Arthur obtained permission to purchase a few animals for export to the Cow Pasture River, New South Wales, where, in •addition, the Privy Council gave

him a grant of 10,000 acres of land upon which to carry out his plans. He did so with such success that within a very few years the rams he reared in the colony were selling there for twenty guineas apiece, and the entire Cow Pasture region was taken up for sheep, Then came drought—the curse of Australian sheep farming-and the settlers were compelled to seek fresh pastures inland across the Blue Mountains, which had not previously been surmounted. Thus, in this, as well as In other instances, wool contributed to the exploration of Australia, but the story, a romantic one enough, cannot be told here,

By the middle of last century it had heen proved conclusively that at least the southern section of Australia was the richest sheep rearing area in the world, and even the gold rushes to Bendigo and Ballarat hardly affected its progress as such. Then, and for long afterwards, the animals were bred for wool only, the mutton being hardly worth selling. Later on the hides and sinews came to be of value; since the introduction of cold storage and transit Australian mutton, as everyone knows, has become an important food product.

With the introduction of machinery much of romance has disappeared from the Australian wool industry, In the old days the settler had'to shear his sheep with the aid of such casual labour as might he available: not infrequently bushrangers took a turn in the wool sheds when not otherwise engaged, The sheep farmer had then to bale the wool by hand labour, to transport the bales perhaps hundreds of miles across roadless country to the nearest railway station, or to the seaboard, a nd had to wait maybe eight' or ten months while sailing ships transported it to market before he received definite payment for it.

All that has been altered. Shearing has become almost as much a matter of mechanism as the manufacture of the fibre into textile fabrics. The shearing seasons ■ remain the same—from July on the northern ranges to December in the southern uplands-and a' certain number of expert shearers are still required. But the latter are no longer mere "casuals," except perhaps, on small stations in the extreme back blocks. Nowadays there is a Shearers' Union to which most of the men belong, and this supplies qualified labour at, piece rates which must be such that! the clipper can earn a minimum wage of £1 .per day. The modern shearer is, therefore, a person ot importance who usually arrives on horseback at the place where he has been engaged, He expects decent accomodation and food, and he will not do menial labour; the wool he shears must he picked up and packed by attendants upon him. The modern wool-clipping shed is a very good place to keep out) of unless you chance to be making money in It. Being commdnly covered with galvanised iron its temperature is furnace like, and its atmosphere, full of flying particles, seems almost unbreathable, Along it runs a line of I revolving shafting driven by a steam or oil engine set hear one end. At certain distances moveable arms diverge from the shafting carrying fistshaped clippers at their extremities, At each of these clippers a shearer takes his place. In a n ordinary shed the operators may amount to a couple of scores; in large sheds they number twice as many. The machinery starts and the frightened sheep, a penful to each shearer, are guided one by one, by the assistants towards the operators who bestride each animal as it reaches them. The snapping clippers are steered over and around the creatures, and the im 'Mi few -tow- mum

might draw off a coat; if the shears draw blood from the pink skin beneath the shearer shouts "tar !" and n boy runs up with stuff to staunch the flow. One. hundred sheep per man is the minimum and about 130 tho. maximum, for an eight hours day? oven the lower number is hard work, especially if the. fleeces are wet, or if tho sheep have been running is "dirty" country. In the latter case the bands of the operators suffer severely from thorns'and the like. The wool, snatched away by the assistants as it falls, is split into neck and leg pieces, body wool, and clippings, each of which is again subdivided into separate receptacles according to quality, Bach, parcel is then placed in- a hydraulic press ! which reduces it to the smallest posj siblc dimensions, cased in coarse ' cloth, bound about with straps 0 i I thin iron, and transported by road I waggon to the railway, of which I there is now one either on,, or in the | vicinity of, most of the larger runs.. I It is carried swiftly down to p; waitI ing steamer, and within six weeks {from the time it was on sheep back |in Australia its owner may have ! learned by cable what price it has ! fetched in the London market. It is sometimes asked whether Australia's wool wealth is likely to go on increasing. The probability is that it will do so, though not at the same rapid rate as during recent years, because wool-growing depends very largely upon' cheap land and areas of such, suitable for sheep farming, are becoming constantly scarcer throughout the Commonwealth. On the other hand artificial I irrigation a nd the spread of railways j are minimising the effects of the fear- ! ful droughts which have from time J to time threatened the very existence lof the industry. These factors tend to make the business more and more I one for large capitalists, but the i wool wealth of Australia remains just as likely to make as many millionaires in the future as it has done in the past—"Weekly Telegraph."