LOW PRICES OF STOCK

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17944, 23 November 1932, Page 7

LOW PRICES OF STOCK

AUSTRALIA GLUTTED WITH SHEEP LITTLE VALUE IN MEAT OR SKINS ALBURY, Nov. 9. Stock owners in Riverina state, that the position created through a succession of three flush seasons is almost unprecedented. Much as droughts are dreaded, there are some who declare that nothing short of a drought couid restore value in sheep at a time when the world posseses apparently an extraordinary carry-over of meat. The favorable seasons have given to Australia a record number of sheep, the estimated increase this year being 50 per cent. The natural order is that the suiplus would be absorbed in the export trade in frozen mutton. But there is no evidence yet of any strength in the demand compared with 1931, and the pre vious year. There is a certain demand for lambs, but not to anything like the usual extent, and the prices offered ior best lamb on the books in Melbourne is little better than half the rate quoted last year. The explanation by stock owners is that at the time the seasons were good stocks were accumulating m London from home sources as well as from the Argentine, so that there is little, if any, field for Australia’s surplus in sheep. Men who have been breeding sheep for many years state that they never remember sheep possessing as little value as at present, But, overstocked as they are, the surplus has to go at any price. Prices, however, are so low that the sheep are not being sent to the usual large selling points, but are being disposed of oil the stations to save droving costs. At off-shears sales held in various parts of Riverina during the past month good lines of sheep have been sold as low as 2s and Is 6d a head, compared with an average price of 6s a bead for the same class of sheep last spring. The former prices ruled at a sale of 25,000 sheep off several of the best holdings in the Gundagai district. Lines of old sheep are almost given away. Prices of hides and skins are low in sympathy. Some harsh things are being said in regard to the influences that are preventing a fair price being paid for sheep and other skins, and although prime sheep are being sold to-day at one-third the price that ruled last spring, the butchers are charging to-day the sarqe retail rates as were asked last’ November. The fear is expressed that large numbers of land owners will go to the wall next year it the moratorium is relaxed to make the way for foreclosure easier and the present sensational low levels continue for sheep.