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Taranaki Daily News, 11 March 1933, Page 4

The fact that the United States had purchased only 3000 of the 1,500,000 bales of wool offered by the Australian sales, up to December 31 last was referred to by Mr. J. S. McLeod at a meeting of the Hastings Chamber of Commerce. “America is now our lowest purchaser,” he added, “but Japan has gone up to second place, and already has bought 313,000 bales of wool. It looks as if she will take 500,000 by the end of the season, as she promised she would.” Owing to the “banking holiday’-’ in the United States, a number of American passengers who arrived at Wellington by the Maunganui from San Francisco on Monday found themselves short of cash while in Wellington, although nominally they had plenty of money behind them. In the absence of quotations as to the value of the dollar, local financial institutions refused to accept American currency except from persons whose resources were known or in cases in which an indemnity was provided against any loss on the advance. In some instances local tradespeople accepted American currency from the travellers and the money has been accepted by the banks from their regular customers on the condition that any shortage would be made good.

The “Abstract of Statistics” for February states that the general index number of export prices for January was 877, an increase of 7 per cent, compared with December, and a decrease of 19.5 per cent, compared with 1914 prices. The retail price index number of the three food groups combined on January 15 fell slightly compared with December. The general index number of wholesale prices for January was 1249, while locally-produced commodities averaged 23.4 per cent., and imported commodities 26.7 per cent, above 1909 to 1913 prices.