FRANCE'S NEED FOE WOOL.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 16415, 8 January 1919, Page 8

FRANCE'S NEED FOE WOOL.

M. Louis F. Leclerq Motte ? one of the members of the French Mission, is a woollen manufacturer of Roubaix, and holds the French Croix de Guerre, and also the British D.C.M., for gallant serv'fos in tho war. His object in the Mission is to establish trade relations with the Dominion in wool and woollen goods, and he .is very -keen to get into touch with business men in the woollen trade generally. France's woollen trade had been badly hit by tho war, as the

big woollen centres of Roubaix and Cambrai had boen almost in the centra of some of the fiercest fighting. At whero there were about ona million of the 2,300,000 spindles engaged in tho worsted trade, a voty great proportion of tlio plant had been irretrievably damaged, but he had no definite information as regarded Ronbaix. The Germans, besides damaging the machinery, had taken over £20,000,000 of woollen goods from France, and it was obvious, therefor®, that she noeded help from tho Alli«a to enablo her to re-establish this gro&t industry on a pre-war basis. To achiev* this, tho French spinners and manufacturers wanted preferential treatment in some way, and they also wantod tho Do. minion to become Franco's customer for some portion of her woollen manufactures. Probably by tho end of twelve months' time tho French woollen indue, try would be getting on to its feofc again, and in three or four years it would be in full swing. According to . M.-Leclcrq Motto's opinion, it would be extremely improbable that the French ■would trade with Germany to anything light the pre-war standard, particularly in partly-manufacturea goods, whicli the Germans finished off and resold to their own benefit, and therefore it became imperative for Franco to find' other markets. Top-makers and epinnors felt very strongly on the question of future trade with Germany, and - even if they did not, the French Government was bound to exercise a control over such trado.