WOOL CONTROL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24256, 26 March 1940, Page 13

WOOL CONTROL

CRITICISM ANSWERED (From Oub Own Correspondent* ' ' LONDON. Feb. 23. Criticism of the wool control was answered by Sir Henry Shackleton, the wool controller, when speaking at Leicester. There had been a good deal of comment, he said; and it was reported that the warehouses were bulging with wool and' that there were unlimited quantities of merino to hand. That was incorrect. It was not possible to fix a price for six months, as some wanted .it to be clone. They must include allowances for contingencies. One contingency was the sinking of vessels bringing wool from Australia and New Zealand. For this, they made a very moderate provision, and the two ships that were sunk by the Graf Spee had made a very considerable hole In it. Dealing with the accusation that the control was profiteering, Sir Harry said it was not possible to profiteer when there was no profit at all. The issue price comprised simply the cost of the wool as they had bought it from the dominions, the expenses of bringing it, 2£ per cent, to cover storage (and it was possible they would have to build warehouses to store the. wool themselves), and another percentage not larger than that which he could not disclose in detail. : V ■ ■■■■•' ; The price was 60 per cent, to 65 per cent, above pre-war. In South America they were paying 50 per cent, to 60 per cent, mores and in the United States they wefe paying 25, per cent, more for their wool without risks of having to take i it overseas. >.