NOTHING LIKE WOOL

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 113, 30 January 1918, Page 8

NOTHING LIKE WOOL

"SHEEP WILL SAVE THE WORLD." Few persons realise the importanceof wool; it is true that food mil'win the war, hut sheep_ will save the' world," said Mr. Tanimura', a Japanese live stock commissioner who is visiting the United States, in the course of a speech at a convention of woolgrowers' associations held in Salt Lake City. Mr. Tanimaru. stated that the emhargo on tho exportation of wool from Australia rendered it necessary for Japan to seek wool from tli6 United States. [The imports of wool in Japan have increased greatly during the last few years, and the value of the imports for ,1915 was moro than double that for tho year 1914. Tho value of the imports fortiie three years 1914, 1915, 1916, are (in' round figures) as follows: —1914, £1,400,000; 1915, £3.050,000; 1916, £3,300,000. The fisuro for 1913 was £1,590,000. Until the difficulties raised by the war, culminating in the purchase of the Australian wool clip by Great Britain, interfered with the development- of tho trade, a very largo proportion of Japan's imports of wool came from Australia. Recently tho Japanese have been buying a good deal of wool in South Africa, and they have also been getting a certain amount from Argentina. Sheep are almost nonexistent in Japan; the statistics for 1914 giving the total number in the country as 2771.1