THE WOOL MARKET.

Otago Witness, Issue 2811, 26 August 1908, Page 20

THE WOOL MARKET.

HIGH C?OMMISSIONER'S ADVICES. (Fboic Qua. Own CoxsKSfosszsxJ ' ; WELLINGTON, August 19. ' /ir Thomas Mackenzie recently i gav«. notice of a 'question regarding the relia- • . bility of the cabled advices of .the ' price j of wool in London as ' received from the* High, Commissioner's offioe. ! The Hon. Mr M'Gowan,. in reply, said :" . The information supplied by -the -High; ! Commiesioner is as reliable as can be, op is, obtained from any other sources, and) shows the actual position of 'the wool market as demonstrated lay the sales in i London. Certain buyers and their agents in the Dominion do, when opportunity occurs, endeavour to discount the markets | with the view to buying as cheaply as ' possible. This cannot be avoided, but producers are safe in taking the High ■ Commisfiioner's cable as reliable regarding 1 the state of the market at the time of * the sales quoted. No attempt is, ofi . course, made by either the High Commiseioner or the local officers of the Indus* tries and Commerce Department to fore* , cast markets, and, ' for very obvious j reasons, such a step is altogether undesir*

j The expression, "I will eat ray hat" Ml j likely to lose favour with those people whd always offer to perform some wonderful feat in the event of their pronounced opinions being proved incorrect. Two gem tlemen recently had a dispute as to £h$ amount of stripping that had to h© don£ 1 after the milking machine, and one of theß* offered to "drink all the etrippinge" leffl by the ''Lawrenoe-Kennedy-Gillies" ma« chine on a dozen cows. The offer being accepted, a tea cup was secured, and 1 found* ample to hold the strippings, which wejcfll as eaeily swallowed as the bet was won* j J. B. MacEWAN & CO. (IiUHITED), ' Sole Agcnte, Duuedin,

able. ' In the opinion of local firms of very high -repute, "whose interests are consider- - able and whose' reputations are, above suspicion, , the -High Commisioner's cablegrams. a»e in' every way reliable', and they state that if ? the , High Commissioner errs at -all. it is in the direction of quoting , above rather than below the ruling rates. Reporting the closing July sales, the High Commissioner said prices- averaged a halfpenny advance over those ruling at the close of last sales (May). Then follows the range of prices. The halfpenny ad- ' vance means 5 per cent, on fine wools and up to 10 per cent, on coarse crossbreds, ynd this agrees with the prices quoted by Dalgetv and Co., and is 5 per cent/ higher than rtW prices quoted by another leading firm, who, being selling brokers, have no inducement to understate the market, but Tather the contrary. The fact that the range of prices given by the High Commissioner for merinos at the close of the July sales is slightly -under Hhe range of prices quoted by .him at the closing of the May sales did not necessarily affect hia statement that there- wae an advance ■of a halfpenny per pound on the- aA-erage prices, and 'it was just this point' that had 1 - misled Mr . Mackenzie. The firms •which he had quoted gave no range of prices, but based their quotes on the average prices obtained at the eales referred, to; . v _ * \ ___ -HIGH COMMISSIONER'S ADVIGES. ' (Fbom Otjb Own Coebbsponden 1 ?.) ' '- * OAMAPvU, August 20. A- representative of the Oamaiu Mail waited on; several firms here to-day with regard' to the discrepancy between the " liondon. wool quotations furnished by the High, Commkaion«r and by several wellknown firnw. The discrepancy, it v?s agreed, existed, and it was accounted for "by the suggestion that tlie private firms got their quotations directly on the spot and forwarded them at onoa, while the High Commissioner's figures were late, and -were too general in their descriptions. The suggestion made by. Sir Joseph Ward that the High .Commissioner's quotations were rather above than below the ruling rates was not questioned.