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DOWN TO ESSENTIALS

British Woollen Industry (By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Special Correspondent.) LONDON, June 28. New Zealand wool producers need not be concerned because the British authorities reject the retailers’ suggestion for the British clothes ration to be increased. Britain is normally the largest per capita wool consumer in the world, but her civil population today uses less wool because of wartime clothes rationing. The British clothes ration is down to strict essentials, not because raw material is scarce, but so that war needs may have first priority, and also so that labour which is not needed for essential cutout may be transferred to war work.

British woollen mills have surrendered thousands of workers to the forces aud to munitions work, but the remaining staffs are performing miracles of production and sensible wartime economies in processing are securing the maximum possible output from the available labour and factory resources. ; The Dominions must not imagine that Britain’s vast productive power ensures unlimited wool textiles for her people. The latter are strictly rationed in the interests of the war effort and internal war economy, which aims at avoiding inflation by curtailing the civilian consumption of goods. Benefit to N.Z.

Meanwhile, Britain’s wool and textile exports are officially limited to Empire and Allied countries whose domestic production of such goods is inadequate for their own requirements. New Zealand benefits under this apportionment, of. British woollen goods exports, and rightly so in view of her valuable contribution to the Empire wool resources. Wool growers may be anxious lest strict rationing of woollen goods in the valuable British market may be allowing competing fibres to secure advancement in public favour at the expense of wool. No such fears need be entertained, as the production of all. other textile, goods is subjected to similar quantitative control, And as a result none can secure ah advantage over others. t If the woollen goods manufacturers could secure alternative raw materials to augment the depleted wool rations it would defeat the whole purpose of Britain's wartime rationing scheme, which aims at curtailing supplies of all final products for the home market. The wartime progress of synthetic fibres is possibly less pronounced in Britain than in any other country. The wool trade here believes that the postwar challenge of synthetic fibres will call for a high degree of enterprise and research among wool interests. But one view is that synthetic fibres are likely to be greater competitors of cotton than of wool. It is also suggested' that synthetic fibres may open up new fields for the us« of wool through new fabrics composed of blends of both raw materials.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19440630.2.56

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 234, 30 June 1944, Page 5

Word count
Tapeke kupu
438

DOWN TO ESSENTIALS Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 234, 30 June 1944, Page 5

DOWN TO ESSENTIALS Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 234, 30 June 1944, Page 5

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