WOOL RATIONING

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 10540, 17 March 1920, Page 5

WOOL RATIONING

FOR NEW ZEALAND MILL PROPOSED ARRANGEMENTS. In connection with the annual meeting of the Woollen Mill Owners' Association. hel& in Wellington last week, delegates discussed with the Government a proposed arrangement for rationing to the mills supplies of wool. The Prime Minister promised to announce the Government's decision in a few days. 'The present position is that the mills are to have all the wool thoy need for this season's operations. there must be no accumulations beyond the usual average of pre-war times, which was very small. While the quanity of wool will 'be available, the price to be paid beyond a certain point has not been decided.

Tho chairman of the Kaiapoi "Woollen Mills (Mr J. A.. Frostick), interviewed with regard to the matter, stated that it was quite clear that the cost of the raw material to the woollen mills had advanced considerably. The New Zealaud public, he was convinced, was not aware of the favourable position in which it stood in regard to the cost of pioduction of all articles made from wool. ' "WORLD PRICES.

The product of the Ken- Zealand mills, probably, could be disposed of on tne markets ot the Uld country at iH) 'to oO per cent, advance on the prices the mills now charged in. .New Zealand. If it was'finally decided that, in this land of abundance prices for its own productions must be decided by the scarcity throughout the world, there was no prospect of the cost ol living here coming down. The Prime Minister was faced ..with many difficulties —there was no doubt about that whatever—but he should not have different policies for different classes of the community. It was hard to see what lines the Board of Trade would follow, under the Board of Trade Act. The principle laid down in the Act seemed to bo the prevention of. any person, or any class of persons, from making undue profits on the cost of production, compared with pre-war conditions. It was a principle with which nobody could find fault. When the price of hides was first fixed by the Now Zealand Government it was higher than the prices on the world's markets. It left the producer a-hand r some profit, and it secured to the. people articles made from the raw material at lower prices than those charged in any other part of the world. Hides had been released, and prices had gone up from 80 to 100 per cent., with the hide market still rising. Was it right to make people in New Zealand, where there was no scarcity, feel the pinch of higher prices because there was scarcity in other countries ? It would -be a sound policy to fix prices for raw materials that would give producers interest on the capital invested, enable high wages to bo paid in order to maintain a high standard of living throughout the community, provide a reasonable marj gin for depreciation and other contingencies, and allow a good trading profit ; but it was' in the interests of the community that there . should he a Board of Trade composed of competent, fair-minded, responsible Business men, in order that, a check_ might be maintained against profiteering.