Wool Prices in 1899, 



471 



infinite variety of different staples, valued at a widely vary- 

 ing range of prices, from the coarsest fibres at a few pence 

 per lb. to those fine merino imports in which the recent rise 

 was conspicuous, and which changed hands at two shillings 

 and ninepence per lb. before last year was over. Thus, wool 

 values are not only the values of altogether different staples, 

 but the values of staples the demand for which is far from 

 uniform or continuous one year with another, being in no 

 small degree swayed by fashion. It is thus not easy to arrive 

 correctly at a figure which could be confidently declared to 

 represent the mean price of the three most distinctive groups 

 of Australasian, African, or British wool. 



Confining the inquiry for the moment to the latter only, it 

 has been customary to quote certain varieties as covering 

 the range of our native wools ; and, following this practice, 

 the average of the available weekly quotations of 1899 1S 

 certainly very far from reflecting an absolute rise of any 

 sort. For the whole year an average price would 

 actually work out lower than has been shown in any year 

 of the preceding twenty. Leicester wool at yd. to 8d. per lb., 

 half-bred at yd. to 8Jd„ Lincoln at 7fd. to 8fd. (or 8±d. for 

 " half-hog" wool), or white Cheviot at 6hd. to 9|d., are one 

 and all below any recent annual averages, and if Southdown 

 wool be quoted as covering transactions stretching from 

 7fd. to 1 id. per lb., this wider range of values still falls, 

 at the lower quotation, below any recent records, and at the 

 higher limit it only just overtops the similar quotations 

 for 1897 and 1898; and the five prices enumerated must be 

 held to represent no inconsiderable section of the estimated 

 home clip of the season, which the Bradford Observer places 

 at over 140,000,000 lbs. 



Not very dissimilar to these British figures is the annual 

 average of yfd. per lb., at which, in 1899 as we ^ as i n 1898, 

 the 87,000,000 lbs. of our wool importations from South Africa 

 was valued. It is not until we examine the Australasian total, 

 which, although smaller on the year, no doubt still constitutes 

 three-fourths of our whole imports, that we find that the 

 initial value of 8*36d. per lb. in January rose to over 9d. in 

 July, and ultimately finished at n*68d. per lb. in December. 

 By the result of that gradual movement for Australasian 



