OUR YORKSHIRE LETTER.

Otago Witness, Issue 3403, 4 June 1919, Page 14

OUR YORKSHIRE LETTER.

BR3AK UP OF CONTROL. HAS THE GROWER MADE A GOOD BARGAIN? REOPENING OF COLONIAL SALES. (From: Our Special Correspondent.) BRADFORD. March 20. It is about three years since tho Government first took control of the English clip, to be followed a few months later by the control of the colonial. -It might be interesting to readers a few thousand miles away to know under what machinery they have been working during this time. At first tho control of English wool was entirely worked from London, from Imperial House and-Caxton House. Westminster. It soon became necessary, however, to open an office in Bradford, both for the purchase of piece goods for the army and navy and for the purchase of raw material actually in the country. One Government order followed another in quick succession, prohibiting dealings in one class of wool or tops or another, until finally everything belonged, to the department. A of the warehouse of what is probably the biggest export piece goods firm in the world was talcen ovor by the department, but soon found inadequate. The second largest hotel in the city was then taken over, and very soon every room in it was occupied by War Office Wool Department staff. Even then there was considerable overcrowding, and it is a miracle that the millions of papers on different subjects have been registered and kept so straight as they have been. Later, the Wool Transport Section and the section dealing with the purchase of the home clip had to be housed in another hotel, which was likewise commandeered ; the original warehouse accommodation was also retained, and two other of the largest warehouses in the town were appropriated for the display to users of wool, top, and noil samples. DEMOBILISATION. We have now arrived at that time when these large premises and the staffs filling them are no longer needed, and are being gradually discarded. It is probable at the present time there will be just about the same number of employees of the department as there were at the beginning of control in 1916. The section that started first—viz., control of English wool and later purchase of colonial —will probably continue longest, and the total staff at the present time will not be more than 20 per cent, of what it was at Christmas, 1918. There has been much discussion in the trade, < and much sarcasm as to wages being paid to inefficient people, both male and female; but most of these have now come to the testing point as to whether they are worth anything or not. Those who can earn a wage will have little difficulty in finding employment by private firms. Those who are incapable will soon find themselves where most of them began—back at home. By the time this letter is in readers' hands the large hotel will have ceased to be a Government department, and will- once more throw open its doors to those who are weary and hungry. The department has decided not to purchase any more English wool, and the smaller hotel, which has been dealing with this and with transport, will also be closed as a branch of the War Office and handed over to _ private management again. The only sections that will be tained are those dealing with the disposal of the Government's holdings to users. One warehouse in which tops and noils are distributed and offered to the trade will be carried on as usual, and the other warehouse referred to, where wool only is on view, will be employed as hitherto for t,t least the next two months in order that mills may have the ohoioe of filling their requirements either at the London sales or in Bradford. THE GROWER'S POSITION.

This long-looked-for break-up of Government supervision is not to be the lot of the colonial grower at present, the Imperial Government having arranged to purchase his wool until the middle of 1920. A good deal depends on the point of view as to whether this is regarded as a misfortune or a lucky event. Quite recently our Government has reduced its prices of iEsue to the trade of wool and tops by 7£ per cent., intimating that the new level of values will remain in force until tht- end of November this year. Bom© members of the trade have, quito reasonably, doubted whether it is practicable to fix values .now for that length of time. Our .French friends across the Channel do not regard it with any great favour. Their argument is held by a good many more_ in this country, and is to the effect that in the next eight months prices, if left to themselves, would fall very considerably more than any mere per cent. France has to import most of her wool. She cannot even get it from her own colonies. Ic hafii to be bought from other nations, which puts France, already a debtor country, still more into foreign hands. No wonder they Tvere looking for a larger reduction in values.

It may so happen that, by arranging to take over the colonial clip for the next full j ear, tlio Government has made a bad bargain unless it can fix the market for all that time and some months later at a level ill at will alicw it. to dispose of the material without loss. South Africa and South America are still free, and it may possibly comos to pass that those markets will fall bciow the British Government's issue prices. If that happens, the buying power of Japan and the United States and European countries outside Great Britain, and that of a number of British mills also, will be diverted to those markets, and to make sales at all the British Government will have to reduce its values also. When shipping was very scarce, our Government could control the wool market, because all other supplies couldbo kept out of tho country. Today that is impossible even with the help of the < Defence of the Realm Act. Evon the British Government is aware that it is not the king of the wool market, and that wool is a commodity produced in such weights by so many various countries that it oannot be cornered by a group of Government people with 45,000,000 tax-payers to fall back upon if they make a mistake. THE RE-OPENING OF COLONIAL SALES. It Is proposed tq- ship big weights of colonial wool to this country—in fact, to ship all the wool the department has bought in Australia and / New Zealand, with tho exception of that which has been sold direct to the United States and Canada. It is also

proposed to handle arrivals in this country through London and the Wool Distribution Warehouse at Manor row, in Bradford, and allow Allies to purchase at the publio sales, with, a. limit on the total quantity which they may be allowed to take. Individual topmakers, spinners, merchants, and manufacturers have objected to this arrangement that it runs the trade into the risk of finding the distribution centres to be "bottlenecks." Kveryono knows what difficulty waa experienced in the trade in obtaining supplies of khaki when first the worsted spinning, then the dyeing, sections of the industry were found inadequate to cope with the weight of material required. It would bo unfair to compel all supplies to 'b« handled through London and the Government's Bradford office if it -were found, of even there were a danger of finding that these departments could not deal with it quickly enough. _lt has been argued that the colonial sales in primary markets should be resumed. Even if the Director of Raw Material is correct in his estimate that considerably more than two and a-half million bales should bo received in this country during the present year, this weight is far more than London has ever handled. In ifei best year it did not touch more than one and a-quarter million bales, so that even if our imports only reach 2,000,000 bales, about three-quarters of a million remain to be dealt with, through the departments Bradford office. If colonial sales were reopened there need not be any loss in business to the London brokers, and it would enable every member of the wool trade in the colonies to form some idea of what wool was worth, and rehabilitate himsell with the industry.