LONDON WOOL SALES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3467, 24 August 1920, Page 12

LONDON WOOL SALES.

NO RECOVERY IN RAW MATERIAL

VALUES.

(From Our Special Correspondent.! LONDON, June 10. The sales were resumed in Coleman Street Wool Exchange last Monday, when a-new order of things came into operation. A week ago it was decided to curtail ths auctions by one week and reduce the offermgs, and the second week of the series opened with a catalogue of only 6627 bale?. Nothing great can be said of what took place, and the series are finishing with no recovery in prices. The curtailment of the auctions and the lessened offerings have not been a sufficient incentive to galvanise the industry into anything like activity, and there is no gainsaying the fact that this has been the worst series since the sales were resumed a good year ago. The trade has become so accustomed to rising values that' when there is a sharp setback everybody is gravely concerned. The history of the trade points clearly to the fact that there hav-> been booms and slumps even in wool; and it is a fact that at the present juncture the latter is being experienced. Everybody likes to see their stocks appreciating in value; no one likes to look at them when pence per lb is to be knocked off their value; but no man can be in business without taking the bitter with the sweet, and if wool to-day is declining and stocks falling sharply, one must not forget that all last year there was a corresponding compensation. It is somewhat unfortunate that the decline should have come at present when the world is enjoying a boom, but it appears as if most people nave now satisfied their requirements until Germany, Russia, Austria, and the Balkan States resume business relations with tho outside world, and if the working classes want an example of what war and Bolshevism can do for a nation they need only turn to the eastern half of Europe. A great many people have yet to learn the elementary lesion that Buffering inevitably follows tho violation of the law of peace and goodwill. WITHDRAWALS CONSIDERABLE. Notwithstanding the lessened offerings, withdrawals every day have been considerable, and that is one of tho worst features which has been in evidence. Every day we have felt that the trade has had enough wool for the time being, and every day's sitting has been characterised with what spirit of "don't care" which is seldom seen in connection with a London series of sales. We have seen times when pages of a catalogue have had to be turned over for the want of a bid, but that very seldom indeed is seen, and things have to be very bad for such a thing to take place. That really is the position of things to-day. Notwithstanding reduced offerings and the decline of last week continuing, indifference is in evidence among both merino and crossbred buyers, and they are making no serious attempt to procure wool. At the same time grcasv merino combing wools are realising from 50d to 60d for the best warp classes, West Australian greasy combing wool has sold up to 39£d, West Victorian mermos continue to mako around 50d to 55d; but these price:, are very different to what we have been accustomed to, and the days of 80d no longer obtain. One misses, too, tho big prices that one got accustomed to for scoured merinos; in fact, prices are ruling to-day on an altogether different level to what we have se<jn for the past 12 months. Revision downwards in a very marked way is the order of the day, and one cannot helo but feel some sympathy with Australian growers as the time approaches for the putting off of control, and the opportunity they will have, of placing their wools on a free market.

CROSSBREDS SELLING RATHER BETTER.

There certainly seems to be a little more interest manifest over crossbreds. and although no improvement can be recorded as regards price; still, the fact is there that buyers have absorbed the offerings fairly creditably. Good 40's fleece wool is selling as low as 18d, and even Geelong greasy fine crossbreds have sold as high as_47 2 d, comebacks also fetching around that figure. These are still very creditable figures, far different from what wool-growers have ever, been used to, but they are not like oOd, which came to be a very regular figure for superior lires of greasy comeback wools. Of course, there is no American support for these wools, and naturally they are feeling it. The home trade buyers, too have as much stock as they can comfortably deal with, and France as not putting up a very big fight for them. There is also a marked decline in scoured crossbreds, and slipes are not fetching the extreme figures which they did. Still, at the lower level of values ruling, the demand is fairly good, but nobody is competing for the wools the same as we have been accustomed to see; m fact, medium and low crossbreds are only selling at the issue prices of the department. This certainly is a little disappointing, particularly to New Zealand pastorahsts, for they have never as yet had a reasonable chance of getting really good prices for their clips, and unless there is a vast alteration they will find, when their next clip comes to be marketed, that the values offering will not be very much better than where they left off before the Government took over their clips. When it is remembered that South American cables are offering Buenos Aires crossbreds of 40's to 44 a quality at 21d, clean basis, o.i.f. Liverpool, it is obvious that buyers will not bid keenly

and pay big figures for New Zealand wools of a similar nature.

CANCELLED CONTRACTS.

What the trade is to-day most concerned about is the cancellation of contracts, and we are glad that this matter is being dealt with in a very practical manner. It could be dealt with' st 11 mere effectively but for tho -Jealousy which exists throughout the entire trade, and before it can be remedied all traders alike will have to face the musir: or else continue to suffer as they are doing. It is unreasonable, unbusinesslike, and unfair for any firm to buy an article and then three months afterwards to want to cancel same. It is not only bad business, but it upsets a firm's arrangements entirely, and puts them at once into serious difficulties. Japan has been a big defaulter, and so have other countries, but nothing like tho .Far feast. American firms have also sent numerous cables cancelling goods, all of which is unsettling business very much. Why cannot united action be taken and the culprits' names be rmblished throughout the length and breadth of the whole trade? It would be done to-morrow if it did not at once make known to a firm's competitors who are his customers; but at a timelike the present it seems to many as if the whole trade would benefit if the present defaulters were named in every branch of the industry. That is the only wav to stop cancellations. Naturally spinners have encountered fewer of these than any other section of the trade, simply because a manufacturer knows that if he falls foul with his spinners he stands to become a marked man when future business is contemplated. Many people believe that there will be renewed buvins in July or_AufrU9* for the spring of 1921, and in the meantime everybody is carrying on. There is at yet no cessation at the mill end of the industry, nor is there likely to be. Tho majority of firms can run the whole of their plant right up to the end of the year, and m the meantime there Is less pressing for orders among spinners and manufacturers than any other section of tho trade. ' TEXTILE TRADE WAGES.

• On account of the increased cost of livin"- textile workers receive an increase of wago3 as'from June 1. The National Association of Unions in the Textile Trade, at a meeting held last Saturday, gave notice of an adjustment in wages for August 1. putting forward a programme for an advance of 4f per cent, on current wages for all operatives, with the minimum rate to be established' for 48 hours of £5 for adult males, 21- years of ago and over; £3 for adult females .18 years of age and over; feat application be made for payment for all statutory holidays, with one week annual holidav, pavmeiit to be made for same; and that niece workers be guaranteed 25 per cent, more than the day workers. This fa a rather startling notice, and will certainly mean another negotiation. If any firm is reckoning on costs of production feeing lessened they are making a great mistake, for miill costs are going to be more rather than leas. There is no manufacturing- commodity that is falling except wool, although soap has come down a little, but every decline so far is more tha.n offset in the increased coat of coal and the sensible rise in wages, and we fail to see the least possibility of there being any decline in the working costs of production.