COMPETITION FOR WOOL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27570, 12 December 1950, Page 7

COMPETITION FOR WOOL

“Ridiculous” Position Of United States Rec. 8.20 p.m. NEW YORK, Dec. 10. The United States had played into the Soviet Union’s hands by failing to stockpile wool, Mr Howard Vaughn, retiring president of the' National Wool Growers’ Association, said today. Mr Vaughn said he had asked the United States Munitions Board in 1948 and 1949 to stockpile wool, but the board had replied that wool was not a strategic material. “ Now America finds itself in the ridiculous position of having to buy wool abroad in competition with Russia and our own domestic market.” Mr Vaughn said. The army had asked the Agricultural Department to buy 30,000,0001 b of wool by next October. “This means we must buy it from Australia in competition with Russia, and since June Russian orders have spear-pointed almost all the rises in wool prices,” said Mr Vaughn. “ I don’t believe Russia needs to buy Australian wool because it has enough of its own. It has only bought 5 per cent, of the Australian output, but that has been enough to make the price go up. Russia is only trying to wreck our economy.”