AUSTRALIAN WOOL PRODUCTION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26410, 14 March 1947, Page 9

AUSTRALIAN WOOL PRODUCTION

DEMAND AND TRENDS IN AMERICA Receipts of wool in Australia for the seven months ending January 31 this season totalled 2,538,798 bales, an increase of 266,760 bales compared with the preceding year, according to,a report from Winchcdmbe Carson, Ltd. Considering the dry conditions over a large part of Australia, the quantity of wool shorn is remarkable. United States competition has been one of the outstanding features of this season’s wool auctions, and there is no sign that the use of the staple in that country will show any marked decrease. During the last six years over 20,000,000 bales have been consumed in the United States, but production has totalled only about 8,500,000 bales.

Of lata, years American production has declined. Landholders have found the output of other primary products more profitable. Rising wages in America have attracted labour from the sheep to other industries, and pastoraJists have not been able to maintain their flocks. The number of sheep pastured in - the United States in 1942 was 49,807,000 and is now slightly less than 40,000,000. Because of her wide disparity between production and consumpiton of the sheep’s staple in the United States, it seems impossible for the United States to provide all the wool her mills require. That fact will no doubt gain consideration from the authorities in their decision regarding an increase or otherwise in the present tariff of 34 cents per lb clean scoured basis on wool imports. A higher tariff would increase the cost of the raw material, and the price of< woollen goods to the American public." i