THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, October 16, 1939. THE WOOL COMMANDEER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23940, 16 October 1939, Page 6

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, October 16, 1939. THE WOOL COMMANDEER

The announcement by the Minister of Marketing, Mr Nash, of the price at which the British Government will purchase the New Zealand wool clip is not as illuminating as growers might desire. His intimation that a price has been agreed on of 12-]d per lb in New Zealand currency might be considered as satisfactory if the Minister had been able to add that the Dominion growers had approved this price as providing them with a reasonable return. But he is presumably not in a position to offer such an assurance. As in the case of dairy produce, so in that of wool, the marketing of the product is to be taken out of the producers’ hands, and a scale of remuneration fixed which can prove adequate only when considered in relation to costs which the Government does not seem disposed to examine closely—at least in their upward trend. The circumstance that Australian growers are satisfied with the price fixed by the Commonwealth and British Governments for their clip emphasises this point. The Commonwealth has not experienced the sharp rise in production costs that has affected every primary industry in New Zealand in recent years; nor has that country been embarked upon a policy of State expenditure that is inevitably of an inflationary nature. Recognising the emergency which has occasioned —and which justifies within the terms of the agreement with the British Government —the wool commandeer, the New Zealand growers may still consider themselves entitled to a much more explicit statement concerning the allocation of the fixed price than the Minister seems at present prepared to give them. There is no indication in his statement of the basis of apportionment as between growers of fine and crossbred wools, though some adjustment must obviously be made within the average, that will reduce the return to vendors of crossbred below that figure. Neither does the Minister so much as indicate what proportion of the fixed price will be absorbed in charges to be borne by the grower. Yet it is obviously the net price, rather than the gross return, in which the sheep farmer is immediately interested. This, in Mr Nash’s words, is one of the details that have still to be arranged. That it is impossible at present to estimate the probable return in profits from the sale of wool outside the United Kingdom—in which Great Britain and New Zealand will share equally—is quite obvious. What Mr Nash fails to specify is the use to which the New Zealand share in any such profits will be put. During the discussion in the House of Representatives on the amending marketing legislation he declared, when pressed by Mr Coates, that the New Zealand Government did not intend to make a profit from the British Government or the producers on the sale of produce under the commandeer. This, it seems, would preclude the possibility of the Government retaining any profits accruing from the overseas sale of the New Zealand clip, but it would be more satisfactory to have a direct assurance from Mr Nash on this, as on other obscure questions which are raised by their conspicuous absence from consideration in his statement.