WOOL PRODUCTION

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 18820, 7 March 1931, Page 10 (Supplement)

WOOL PRODUCTION

READJUSTMENT OF COSTS. In the annual report to Parliament of the Queensland Land Administration Board for 1929-30 the following passage occurs:—“Wool must be made to pay, and he sooner that is done the j sooner will the tide of prosperity turn 1 in our national life. If prices do not immediately recover, action must be taken to readjust all costs of production to an extent that will leave a margin of profit to those who conduct this industry. That seems to be the only j way out.” The report says that the circumstance w'hich prepared the way for all the other causes of financial depression to operate harmfully was the sudden drop in wool prices, and that at the present cost of production the industry cannot long carry on. It further states that the present position is aggravated by the fact that these serious conditions are prevailing at a time when graziers are embarrassed by overdrafts contracted during years of severe drought, and thus there are now' heavy costs, low prices, and burdensome overdrafts adversely operating together. The costs of running an average-sized grazing property in Central Queensland have doubled in the last fifteen years, and the board estimates that the average mortgage debt on grazing farms approximates 30/per sheep. In the matter of rents charged for Crown leaseholds however, Queensland, it is stated, is more fortunate than the southern States. The board considers that to meet a prolonged period of low prices for wool a review of sheep-holding rents is necessary.