THE PRICE OF WOOL

Southland Times, Issue 23379, 10 December 1937, Page 9

THE PRICE OF WOOL

To The Editor

Sir, —In your issue of December 9 an article appears over the heading, “Wool Is Down, So Salaries Go Up.” In the next column of the same issue we find these words, “Rise In Wool Prices.” Is this another of those misleading statements engineered by the Tory Press, or is it only a joke on your part? No, sir, I take it that you are not joking, but that you are in dead earnest. In your issue dated December 7 a letter appeared over my pen name asking you what you meant by your misleading article headed, “Hasty and Drastic Legislation.” You have been very conspicuous by your silence to my attack upon you, so I take it that you have seen the folly of your ways and now fall in line with the fixed prices. I would like you to answer two questions. First, what salary did the Director of Internal Marketing receive before Picots was bought and what was this gentleman’s rise? Secondly, what salary did the Controller of Commercial Broadcasting receive and the amount of his rise? Now, sir, let us study these wool prices a little. There have been three sales this year, at Auckland, Napier and Wellington. The Napier sale showed an increase of a Jd a lb over Auckland. Wellington then showed an increase of Id over Napier which means there is a definite rise of ljd a pound. Where then do you get the term wool is down”? lam just beginning to wonder what is behind all these misleading statements of yours. During the week a prominent business man handed to me a paper entitled Modern Russia,” and on studying it I find it full of misleading statements, so I. along with thousands of other people in Invercargill am beginning to think that the Communist Party is dictating to the Tories and telling the Tory Press what to write as they know Labour is their bitterest enemy.—Yours, etc., GROCER. December 9, 1937. [The price of wool has risen slightly at the Napier and Wellington sales, but it is still very substantially below last year’s price. The answers to our correspondent’s two questions—whatever the answers are—would have nothing to do with the point of our article, which was that the salaries being paid to these two gentlemen are excessive m relation to the salaries paid to. other civil servants in positions which are clearly more responsible than theirs. Editor, The Southland Times.]