The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. TUESDAY, JULY 11, 1911.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3266, 11 July 1911, Page 4

The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. TUESDAY, JULY 11, 1911.

There' is, much; of interest to wcolgrowens in an ar- . tide in the “Sydney Morning Herald” anent. the wool trade. With the dose of the' Australian 1910-11 season, the position is,, we are told, that there is enquiry for wools of good length, but medium to short stapled wools, and especially the lower grades, are not in demand. The more buoyant state of the worsted than the woollen branch of the industrycoupled with a comparative scarcity of long-stapled to sliortstapled sorts, has tended to maintain a good: demand! for the one class of the staple, and to depress the other. But even with this drawback there has been no piling up of stocks, and with two or three months to run before any real weight of wool is forthcoming there is at present no room for any serious talk of dulness. ,Fortunately the skin wools are now beginning to show a larger proportion of good length of staple; and if the high quality sheep with early shorn skins, such as have lately been in evidence, continue to come forward in quantity, the wool market can be kept fed with lines that are in demand, and that cannot afford to he neglected even though there is a desire to talk cheaper wool. As to the prospects in regard to the new Australian clip, the “Herald” says that they are good. The heavy clip and early dip are, however, being forestalled as far as possible by a depressing feeling, and the woolcombing trouble in Yorkshire is not helping to lift- it. Anything that tends to prepare the way for a lower basis of values is .

The Wool. Trade,

nurtured assiduously as the Australian selling season advances. The annual “bearing” campaign was got under way in England for last season in July, and it only needs a few individuals to w,ite home” as to the certainty of a good clip next season for the trade to suffer from similar disabilities this year. It seeme at one time that last season’s clip would be a good one, and once the impression got abroad that it was likely t-o he it was at once transformed into a certain'ty. Estimates were prepared, the trade was “warned,” and.no ink was unused that gave promise of keeping wool down. Early in the selling season, when the wools came to be opened up, it evident that there would have to . be some modification of views as to weight and quality. ’This was apparent, and corrected versions were put out; hut 1 was all to deaf ears and to blind readers whose object! if was to help “bear” the Australian wool markets. Several English papers tliat persisted in booming “estimates” out of all proportion to probable results could not be curbed, egregious blunders were made as to probable quantities, and' the question now is : What can be done in the ensuing season to counteract such a misleading state of affairs? Upon this point the “Herald” says tliat if users can get wool a little cheaper by standing off the market at any time; or talk about supplies being “heavy,” that-is good business. Every individual buyer naturally wants to purchase as advantageously as possible, and all are concerned in operating on a safe basis. AIT this is selfevident; and growers, on the other, hand, are concerned’ iir “keeping their end up” by not rushing wool on the market at inopportune times, and neither side is concerned' iir rash estimates or guesses being put forward and bolstered up by irresponsible persons. AH that is wanted is a fair'deal in wool—the same as in any other world market commodity. Tlie buyers are few and consolidated. When wool'comes forward as it does in an early-shearing season, in great volume in interstate centres in November, they are more" or less masters of the situation. Quantities are marketed much like wool is grown—according to weather condition. If it is shorn .it is rushed forward, avalanchelike. If the market is good, every grower rushes to realise while values are high; if it is not too good;, there is a considerable scramble for fear the worst is not reached. There are no steadying or regulating influences-in the whole of the markets. If rain falls' during the shearing season, and wool comes forward slowly, or if a coal-miners’strike threatens to arrest the flow of wool to consuming centres between November and January, then wool-growers are indeed in a fortunate position. Accidental circumstances have effected a regulation or steadying of supplies in a way that growers and sellers could not arrange for themselves. “The season now closed,” adds the “Herald,” “showed how evil it was for unfounded estimates to be insisted upon in England, when there was no warrant for them; and how manifestly to the advantage of sellers it would have been if quantities could have been lessened or supplies withheld at critical periods during tlie selling season.”