WOOL STABILISATION

New Zealand Times, Volume LII, Issue 12185, 9 July 1925, Page 3

WOOL STABILISATION

SIR JOHN HIGGINS’S SCHEME ADDRESS AT MELBOURNE CONFERENCE NEW ZEALAND DELEGATES’ OPINION At the Australian Woolgrowers' Conference, recently held at Melbourne on and attended by the New Zealand pastoralists' delegates, Messrs Bernard Tripp and W. H. Nicholson, Sir John Higgins, K.C.M.G., submitted a scheme formulated by himself for ensuring the stabilisation of wool values throughout Australasia. In his address, Sir John Higgins laid special emphasis on the fact that the word "stabilisation" be interpreted not as a method for the "artificial fixation of prices," but as a means to minimise, or eliminate as far as possible, such price fluctuations as produce "booms 0 or "slumps." In May, 1923, addressing the Bradford Chamber, the president (Sir Henry Whitehead) had suggested that the Imperial Conference should consider the advisableness of an export tax on raw materials in the production of which the Empire has a monopoly, and he had referred particularly to merino wools. Concurrently with production, there should be effective organisation for collective marketing. The adoption of such a course by the farmers of the United States had been strongly advocated by President Coolidge in a recent address to the TJ.S.A. Congress. _ President Coolidgo had said : "No complicated scheme of lief, no plan for Government fixing of prices, no resort to the public Treasury, will be of any permanent value in establishing agriculture. Simple and direct methods put into operation by the farmer himself are the only real sources for restoration."

In the middle of 1924 a number of delegates, representing the French woollen industry, were in conference with the Bradford Chamber of Commerce when matters of common interest to both centres were discussed. Among these was a proposal from the Central "Wool Committee of France that an International Wool Federation should be constituted on the lines of the cotton federation, which would deal particularly with statistics of importations and exportations, and of production of wool and of semi and fully-manufactured woollen products. This proposal had been supported by the majority of the delegates present. Some little time ago. it became common knowledge that objectionable practices were in evidence concerning the wool marketing, and that in the interests of Australian woolgrowers some means of protection was of immediate necossity. , ' The number of small sheep-holdings, and consequently small clips, were greatly increasing largo clips would surely become still fower as the big areas were gradually subdivided. To-day, so far as classification was concerned, the number of small clios received from individual farmers could not be compared with those forwarded in the days of big clippings. "The British Empire controls the world's production of raw wool. bolh merino and crossbred, and in. the production of wool furnishes supplies of mutton and lamb. A scheme for the stabilisation of wool, therefore, embraces provision both for food and clothing, tw r o of the most important and essential commodities to man. There is no other commodity that can be so easily stabilised ns wool; there is no other commodity which presents such sound and excellent nrospects for the nractical and successful application of Empire preference." Thus concluded Sir John JHiggins. It is the ouinion of the New Zealand delegates that, although Sir John Higgins's proposed scheme may . not he adopted in its entirety, it will in all probability form the basis of the scheme finally decided upon.