WOOL OR SHODDY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1957, 13 December 1906, Page 3

WOOL OR SHODDY.

In view of the reduoed number of eheep throughout the world, remarks “ BraDi ” ia the Australasian, the quantity of wool brought to market must naturally show a corresponding shortage. The high pricos ruliog this season will stimulate the ingenuity of manufacturers to produos so-oalled woollen fabrics, in which there is less and less of wool, in order to Bupply the trade with cheap materials, supposed to be composed wholly or partly of wool, at low price. For many years pest it has been a subject of oomple.iot on tbe part of wool growers that goods are put on tho market purporting to bo woollen, wbioh in most cases contain very little wool, and in some instances have not a particlo of wool in them'. Similar frauds in other products arc heavily punished; but there is no law to protect tho wool-grower. A writer in the Scottish Farmer put tho case very forcibly : “If goods made in Germany must be sold as such; if margarine is differentiated by law from butter; if milk must be up to a certain legalised standard, why should not woollen goods have at least a minimum percentage of wool in their composition beforo they could bo sold as woollen. . . . Any thing of a shoddy or grossly adulterated nature is to bo held in disrepute. ‘A’ oo ’is tho gonuine article, and in this and other countries, where sanitary clothing is increasing in favour, it will always have plenty demand.” It seems curious that there should bo such a disinclination on the part of legislative bodies to enforce a true description of fabrics purporting to be composed of wool, but which, in the majority of instances, are made almost entirely of substances other than wool.