AUSTRALIA’S WOOL.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20362, 20 July 1934, Page 1

AUSTRALIA’S WOOL.

Commissioner Reviews Position. United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, July 19. “ Australia’s good depends almost solely on the condition of her primary industries, whose capacity to produce depends chiefly on the weather,” says Mr R. W. Daltpn, British Trade Commissioner in Australia, in a report to the Board of Trade, which has now been issued. The report deals exhaustively with economic and trade conditions to December, 1933. After describing the general improvement which commenced early in 1933, it says: “It is significant and deserving of record that salvation came from wool, the product which alone throughout the crisis remained without direct artificial assistance. The self-government of the wool industry has been remarkable for its foresight and strength. At a time when all over the world restriction of output or sales had become almost a fetish, the graziers’ councils and the national council of the wool-selling brokers persisted in the policy of selling each season all the wool coming forward. Events have proved how wisely that policy was devised and directed.

“ To sum up the general position of public finance, I may say that in spite of the improvement in conditions there is still very serious weakness in certain parts of Australia's economic structure, which prelude the assumption of too much from the existing evidence of improvement. Much will depend on world movements and more, perhaps, on conditions in Australia itself.”