OUTLOOK FOR WOOL

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22694, 5 April 1937, Page 5

OUTLOOK FOR WOOL

MARKET'S STRONG POSITION SUPPLIES AND FLOCKS SERIOUS SETBACK IMPROBABLE The lean months in regard to the quantity of wool available for purchase by the world's millmen are now at hand, states Winchcombe, Carson, Limited, woolbrokers, Sydney, in its latest review. From April to September supplies will he most limited, and consumers will be eating into stocks with very little opportunity to replace them. On present indications, consumption is likely to be larger in 1937 than during 1936. Employment is greater in most countries. Raw material values generally are on much advanced levels. Under their impetus, production is expanding, putting more men into work, who in their turn, demand larger quantities of manufactured goods to fill their wants. Just as diminishing prices in the early depression years created more and more idle hands, increasing prices are having the reverse effect. in regard to the supply question and its effect on prices, wool is more strongly situated than most commodities. Larger supplies of metals can be fairly quickly produced. Wheat, cotton, and other crops can he sown in greater quantities and, provided seasons are favourable, larger supplies will be obtained. Good pastoral conditions will result in some increase in the world's clip. But flocks cannot be increased with rapidity. Even under the most promising circumstances, they "do not increase to any marked extent in

a few years. The latest figures show that the estimated number of sheep in the world is 100,000,000 less than six years ago. Unfavourable seasons in many countries aiid low; prices for wool, mutton, and lambs, certainly discouraged production to some degree. Apart from that aspect, a brake is put on increasing sheep numbers by the enormous number of stock slaughtered annually for meat consumption. In Australia, New Zealand, the United States, South America, and South Africa, approximately -70,000,000 sheep are slaughtered yearly. That curb on stock numbers goes on in all countries. A quick and large increase l in the world's sheep flocks and wool clip is, therefore, an impossibility"under modern living conditions. Of all raw materials, wool, therefore, is very strongly situated. Artificial fibres have probably exercised some check on its price, but they have not prevented the use of all the sheep's, stable which is grown. While employment is maintained or increased, a serious setback in wool prices looks improbable.