WOOL TRADE REVIEWED

Taranaki Daily News, 4 November 1926, Page 9

WOOL TRADE REVIEWED

MANUFACTURERS’ LOSSES. DECLINE IN THE BUSINESS. By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright. Received Nov. 3, 11.30 p.m. London, Nov. 3. Mr. Vernon Willey, in an address at the Colonial Institute, declared that during the past eighteen months all stages of wool manufacture between the grower and the retailer had been unprofitable, but the growers and retailers had received adequate rewards. The governing factors in wool textiles were the world’s decreased buying power and the attraction of money in other directions such as, for instance, motor-cars, also the vagaries of fashion and the relative cheapness of cotton. The best correctives would be the collection of fuller statistics, a revised system of distribution and a futures market for wool tops. Wool was the only leading commodity without a futures market. Mr. Willey also advocated the extension of the colonial selling season, because the trade’s resources were no longer equal to lifting a year’s production within a ■few months. An extension of the selling period would help to straighten out the price curve and correct intermittent employment.