WELLINGTON NEWS

Hokitika Guardian, 24 September 1928, Page 7

WELLINGTON NEWS

lSpecial io ’ Guardian.”) LONDON WOOL SALES. WELLINGTON, Sept. 20. The fifth of the seines of London wool sales commenced on Tuesday evening and prices realised at the opening come up to expectations So far as Europe is concerned this is a period of between seasons, for scarcely any new clip from Australia can have reached London. There shoakl not be a comparative scarcity of the raw material in England, and had business been good there would have been a shortage', but the dullness in trade has forced users to adopt a hand-to-mouth policy. Users declare that supplies are ample to tide them over the interval. The p sition in the West Riding wool textile industry gets worse. The official organ of the amalgamated trades unions remarks that “the- state of trade is awful in general” It is stated that in one district alone there are between 40CO and 5000 operatives partiall.y or entirely out of work Those who are holding stocks' of raw material still hope for a revival of business in yarns and piece goods.

Air G. AVillingmyre, wooN market specialist of the Department of Agriculture, U.S.A., on his return from Europe, where he attended the recent Paris conference to consider the problem of collecting comparable wool statistics, states that international statistics on this commodity now seem likely to become a- reality. Delegates from the wool industries of England, France, Belgium, Germany, Italy and v-'zecho-Slovakia attended the conference and reviewed a schedule for immediate 1 use in the collection of, this, information,- The (conference recommended that wool statistics he raaut compulsory by the passage of laws within each of the countries making it obligatory for dealers and manufacturers to report their holdings on certain dates and the quantity of wool entering consumption. Mr AA?illingmyre while at Bradford attended a conference of Australian, New Zealand and South African wool growers and members of the British AVool Federation . and the Bradford Chamber of Commerce, which was called to discuss difficulties ot .production .and, manufacture, changes of fashion and so on. He .believes, that meetings such as ,jdiis could advantageously the held ' hy wool producers and manufacturers in other,- countries. Organisation of the Cntire wo.pl industry, in the Continental countries is said ;to have gope fq-r. . These .organisations include -wool producers,., merchants, wool-pullers, commission members, .spinners, weavers and,distributors.. Problems arising in any branch of the industry are brought to the attention of representatives of the different branches and free discussion is invited, usually resulting in a recommendation for correction, with the welfare of the entire industry in mind. ■

Little scientific, research,, has been so far applied to the study. of. the “quality” of wool as related to spinning power, whether from the point of view of the sheep farmer, to whom the fleece is a- marketable commodity, or from the point of view of the manufacturer, who must take into account such characteristics as the fineness, length, colouring, lustre, and crimp of his raw material. Referring to these attributes the Empire Marketing Board says they are affected by factors of inheritance, of climate and of food. They have, hitherto for the most part been assessed at time of sale by the trained instinct of expert judges and the absence of any scientific basis for judgment has lately been pointed by the adoption on the part of the United States Government for certain arbitrary standards, based on the character of fibres, which disregard many of the characteristics upon which the manufacturing values of wool depend The United Kingdom possesses a greater variety of breeds of sheep than any other country in the world and thus affords a speciallv advantageous field for the scientific study of wool qualities. The work of the British Research Association for the woollen and worsted industries established at Leeds, in the heart of the wool manufacturing industry, has reached a point, the possibilities of a scientific standardisation of woof quality are cear, and the working arrangements establislid between that association and the animal breeding research department of the University of Edinburgh have ensured that the scientific standardisation required shall be explored in its practical bearing on sheep breeding.