WOOL IN STORE IN NEW ZEALAND.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 145, 20 June 1931, Page 32 (Supplement)

WOOL IN STORE IN NEW ZEALAND.

BRADFORD STATEMENTS STRONGLY COMBATED. P«r Press Association. DUNEDIN. June 19. Keen exception to statements made by Bradford correspondents to New Zealand newspapers, with respect to the quantity of wool withheld from sale in the Dominion this season, is taken by representatives of the broking firms in Dunedin, who regard such misstatements of fact as an attempt on the part of Bradford to "bear’* the market. It has been stated in special articles on the wool trade that from 900,000 to 400,000 bales of wool remained unsold at the close of the 1930-31 auctions in New Zealand. A member of a well-known wool-brok-ing firm in Dunedin to-day drew the attention of a "Times’' reporter to such an assertion by a Bradford authority, pointing out the absurdity of the statement by explaining that the total dip for the season did not exceed 800.000 bales. It was nonsense, he said, to’expect anyone to believe that one half of the Dominion’s wool clip had been withheld from sale.

Asked what he considered was the correct quantity of unsold wool in New Zealand during the past year the broker stated that as far as could ba discovered, after most careful investigation by brokers throughout the Dominion, there wert no more than 85,000 bales held over this year. There was such a disparity between that figura and the quantity mentioned by Bradford authorities that it was difficult to avoid the conclusion that there was deliberate misrepresentation on the part of the industry in Yorkshire with a view to further "bearing” the market. It was unlikely that there would be any great quantity of wool held over in a season like the present, because farmers needed money badly. Selling agents would not counsel a policy of holding, because they themselves ware in need of the ready money that might be expected from clients who disposed of their wool. So far as Dunedin was concerned he was sure the amount of wool still in store, or in woolshed, was comparatively small, and there wa*s no lack of information to prove that clearances at other centres had been hardly less complete than in Dunedin.