469 



WOOL PRICES IN 1899. 



The flockmasters of Great Britain do not appear to have 

 shared in any large measure, if at all, in the upward move- 

 ment of wool prices which characterised the latter half of the 

 year 1899. This rise was nevertheless so marked in certain 

 descriptions of imported wool as to lead some acknowledged 

 trade authorities to describe the past year as distinguished 

 by a veritable revolution in values. Before altogether 

 accepting this view of the position, it is well to remember 

 that other things besides wool showed some improvement 

 in value last year. The general trade activity of the period 

 is an acknowledged fact, and there is practically no doubt 

 that, broadly speaking, the prices of the great majority of 

 commodities, other than grain, moved very distinctly up- 

 wards during 1899. Indeed the compilers of what are known 

 as " Index numbers " agree in pointing to the close of the 

 year as establishing something like an average advance of 

 12 or 13 percent, all round within the twelve months, re- 

 presenting a return to a general level of values approximat- 

 ing those of the latter part of 1 891. 



Some part therefore of the rise in wool prices was probably 

 indirectly the result of this general movement, but some 

 more exceptional factors must have been at work to have 

 produced the more specific changes not thus accounted for. 

 The widely accepted tables, in which the Economist newspaper 

 annually endeavours to sum up the typical price movements 

 of the leading commodities of British trade, quote " sheep's 

 wool," in general terms, as standing on the 1st January, 1900, 

 not merely 1 2 per cent., but nearly 44 per cent, above the 

 price quoted on the 1st January, 1899, and still more largely 

 above the quotations of the opening day of any one of 

 the six preceding years. The figure thus referred to can 



