WOOL INDUSTRY

Southland Times, Issue 22046, 20 June 1933, Page 6

WOOL INDUSTRY

MARKETING METHODS

BOARD OF CONTROL NOT WANTED

ADVICE TO FARMERS

(Per United Press Association.)

Wellington, June 19.

The Woolbrokers’ Association issues an official statement bearing on the discussions in the Press regarding a Wool Control Board, standardization of grades and binning. It is desirable, the statement says, that the views of the association should be made known so that farmers, during the period of hard times, may not be induced to take any false step. The interests of the farmers and brokers are identical, but the brokers do not desire to see Government interference or a board of control creep into a business now efficiently conducted. It is recognized the world over that the system of marketing wool here and in Australia is the best in the world. This was also recognized at the Empire Wool Conference in Melbourne in 1931, when growers were present from Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. The statement says that the industry can control itself and the business acumen of the brokers, buyers, growers and financiers does not leave room for any board, however composed, to interfere, with advantage to the grower. The law of supply and demand and world-wide competition, which is obtainable through means of the wool sales here and in London, determine in the only business, practical and economic way, the price which the grower gets.

With regard to binning, there is a point which should be made quite clear. Wool is not on all fours with butter, meat or hemp. It is difficult to conceive how butter could be marketed except through factories and, as far is meat is concerned, unless sheep are sold upon the hoof, they must be graded before being paid off. The grading of hemp has never been too satisfactory owing to personal education and the fact that the growth of the fibre varies in various districts just as wool in the Dominion differs in growth, staple and character in different provinces. This, in itself, would render a standardization of wool grades in New Zealand a difficult problem. In all these cases the number of grades involved is a bagatelle. Case wool is different. The Bawra scheme in Australia had 840 grades and some New Zealand centres require grades running into several hundreds. It is pointed out that, in contrast with butter, all wool has some value and finds a market according to quality. There are buyers for all lots, whether well or indifferently classed, skirted or unskirted. To bin or not to bin is the question to be dealt with from day to day on its merits, and brokers give free and impartial advice to the grower. Binning, therefore, should be left to the discretion of the farmer and the grower.

Regarding the suggestion that, if some compulsion were used to bin small clips, it would give brokers a larger quantity of wool to work upon and enable them to make larger parcels, this, doubtless, would be the case, but it would be introducing a bad principle and using a sledge-hammer to break a nut.' Compulsory binning would be obnoxious and an anathema to most business men and to the farmers themselves.

The report concludes by saying that the brokers would strongly object to Government officials being employed in their stores and anything that savours of Government interference would meet with the strongest opposition.