WOOL SEASON

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 19961, 20 November 1934, Page 4

WOOL SEASON

IMPORTANCE TO THE DOMINION HOPES OF COMMUNITY To those associated with New Zealand’s export industries, the 1934-35 wool year signifies much more than "just another wool-selling season.” Sheep farmers and pastoral concerns will,of course, benefit by a favourable season, but the size of the Dominion’s wool cheque will have a considerable bearing on business conditions generally and it is likely to mean something to the dairy industry. “More depends on the results of the sales than is generally realised," said a leading exporter recently. “In the 1933-34 selling year the wool cheque reached about £10,000,000, more than double that of the previous season. The benefits spread right through the economic structure of the country. Many graziers were able to show a profit for the first time in years, and the companies which had been financing them in the lean times secured some return on the capital so tied up. This has enabled many concerns to offset substantial losses and to proceed with capital reconstruction plans. Trade conditions in the cities and in the country brightened, thus hastening the return of prosperity. In addition, graziers began to move out of the dairying industry, which they entered as a temporary measure only.” Another favourable wool year was needed to consolidate these gains, it was stated. This did not mean that prices as high as the peak of the previous season were essential. During 1934 the wool market showed weaker, tendencies owing to Continental buying restrictions and to the slower improvements in other commodity markets. There was now every indication that the market was again improving and that a return to the low prices of recent years was out of the question. Fortunately, the New Zealand wool was going on the market when the uncertainty of the mid-year months had teen largely dispelled. The stage now reached was one where a further impetus to trade was needed and business people were hoping that the wool season might supply that want, it was stated. The beneficial effects of the last selling season were still being felt, but they could not continue indefinitely. Another favourable season was just as necessary to the sheep farmer, who had not yet recouped the losses of the depression years. If he could see a sound market ahead for his clip, it was hardly likely that he would continue to carry dairy herds just for ready cash. Given any encouragement at all. he would return to his business of growing wool and this movement would help to check the over-produc-tion in dairying.