NEWS FROM THE CAPITAL

Taranaki Daily News, 11 October 1926, Page 2

NEWS FROM THE CAPITAL

WELLINGTON TOPICS. WOOL CONTROL BOARD. (From Our Own Correspondent.) Wellington, Oct. 6. It will- be remembered that at the annual conference of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union some of the rabid control advocates managed to get a resolution passed to the effect that a wool organisation board was essential for the better marketing of New Zealand wool. No indication was given as to the measure of this better marketing, or how an organisation board was to accomplish this betterment. However, considerable care was taken to avoid the word “control,” which appears to have acquired a sinister meaning since the Board and the Dairy Board commenced operations. The organisation board proposal in respect of wool was brought, before the Minister for Agriculture by a deputation of interested farmers who waited upon him on August (’> The Minister has just furnished a reply in which he shows that the Government is ait last realising that control is not the cure-all for economic ills. The. Minister has turned down the proposal, and quotes the fact that the Australian pastoralists turned down the elaborate proposal of Sir John Higgins, chairman of Bawra, for the formation of “ a voluntary association of woolgrowers, mutual in character, for the purpose of giving as far as practicable greater regularity and greater stability in wool values,” Farmers may well ask if control is advisable in the case of meat, dairy produce, fruit, honey, etc., why it should be undesirable in the case of wool? The fact is that if the farmers with their present knowledge of control were asked to vote on the matter they would promptly turn it down. That was amply demonstrated at the election for Dairy Control Board members. The wool market does not need controlling, and will not tolerate control qxereised by any political body. Of all our markets wool occupies a unique position.'After many fluctuations wool is now steady and firm. Prices have reached th© .economic level, and it is best to leave them there.

BUTTER PRICE IRREGULARITIES.

The latest cable advices from London indicate that the butter market is weak and prices irregular; The latter is confirmed by quotations received by various firms. One quotation is 152 s to 1565; another message states that the highest price is 158 s; another message gives the price as 154 s to 1565; and still another 156 s to 158 s. The High Commissioner’s message gives the quotation as 154 s to 158 s. It is difficult to know which of these quotations to accept as approximately correct, but perhaps lo’aß would nearly represent the true price. The market has not reached rhe limit of its descent, and lower prices seem inevitable. The Alexander Hamilton Institute’s “Monthly Review of Business Conditions” states with respect to butter that the position from the exporters’ point of view is reported to be statistically weak in that the accumulation of butter stocks in London, which has been evident for some time, has not decreased. There has been a marked diminution in consumption by reason of the coal strike, etc., and this fact, coupled with the large supplies which have gone forward from the butter producing countries in the Northern Hemisphere, has created a situation decidedly inimical to those expecting good returns. The London market is weakened further by conditions in the United States, where production is reported to have been on an exceptionally heavy scale. This, of course, has reduced the necessity to import/’ It will be remembered that Germany increased the duty on butter which immediately curtailed the imports from Denmark, this surplus Danish butter being’ thus forced on to the British market. The imports into the United Kingdom for the seven months to the end of July were less by 190,000 cwt than in the corresponding term of last year, but owing to a contraction in the demand and the holding up of supplies a different position has been created.