Wool Marketing: Some Thoughts From The Market Place

This paper will not discuss wool's competitive situation, its general outlook, or the nature and significance of its price fluctuations. These are nowadays receiving good attention elsewhere. My main object here is to restate some of the basic facts about the wool market, which must always be borne in mind in any discussion of wool marketing. And the method will be to describe existing marketing systems briefly, and then to examine some of the circumstances which place limitations on the choice of alternative systems available. However, there will be no attempt to make any such choice; only to provide some light for any discussion on the problem. One reason for this approach is that I believe that, with this, the most complex and specialized of our major products, there has been a tendency to reach conclusions without a proper consideration of these principles. Another reason is that wool marketing is a good example of a subject which calls for a blend of both practical knowledge and an economic sense. The practical man cannot go far without an understanding of economic principles and the place of wool in the nation's economy and in world trade; the economist needs a good knowledge of the nature of the fibre, its production pattern and the way in which it must be handled in the many processes before it arrives at its end uses.