The Wool Sale

Southland Times, Issue 23734, 4 February 1939, Page 4

The Wool Sale

The result of the Invercargill wool sale yesterday was distinctly better than most growers and brokers had anticipated. Although prices were on an average jd or more below last year’s, they shqwed an improvement of from |d to id on recent New Zealand sales, and there was almost a complete clearance of the 24,000 bales offered. Apparently Southland growers owe part of their good fortune to President Roosevelt whose recent statement on the international situation stimulated the share market in France and led French buyers to force the bidding yesterday in a .way that was quite unexpected. Bradford, as usual, took the biggest proportion of the wool, but keen competition from France kept prices at comparatively good levels. The New Zealand mills are never very interested in the coarse qualities offering at Invercargill, American purchases were restricted and Japan, though again a competitor at the sale, bought sparingly. The wool was not in particularly good condition after a dry autumn and a shortage of feed in the winter months, but that has been the experience at most New Zealand sales this season.

When all that is said, however, the position of the wool grower remains far from satisfactory. The average price at yesterday’s sale will be below last year’s average of about lOd, and that was poor enough compared with the 16d realized in 1937. Growers are well aware that while their returns are falling their costs are steadily rising. Many of them could barely recoup expenses last year; this year, faced with heavier costs in all directions, they will be unable to escape without definite losses.- Their position is made the more serious by the Government’s refusal, even at this stage, to recognize the vital necessity of a proper balance between costs and overseas prices. The scales are being tilted more and more against the farmer, and the decline in production, already disturbing, must be accentuated.