FELT SLIPPER INDUSTRY

Hokitika Guardian, 12 March 1929, Page 2

FELT SLIPPER INDUSTRY

FACTORY TO BE STARTED IN WELLINGTON. Within about a week’s time a start will he. made in Wellington with a iactory for the manufacture oi lelt slippers. The new company will be controlled by Felt and Textiles' of Australia, Ltd., which is engaged in making felt in Sydney. About (50 hands will find employment during the initial stages of the company’s operations, but later more will he- absorbed. The new company will he known as New Zealand Slippers, Ltd. Mr H. Van de Velde, managing director of the Australian company, which has already started to manufacture the felt for the Wellington factory, in an interviey with a “Daily Times” reporter supplied some facts concerning the new industry. Hie felt slipper industry in Australia, he said, had gone ahead liv leaps and bounds. No fewer than 41 firms were manufacturing these goods, and the numbers of pairs of slippers purchased annually in the Commonwealth exceeded 4,000,000, and the output was rapidly increasing. “The explanation of this, said Mr Van de Velde, “is that the felt slipper is comfortable, serviceable, and cheap, fn order to cater for the trade mv fil m has established an up-to-date felt mill at Sydney, which supplies all the slipper felt required. This coni pane, which, incidentally, supplies a great deal of this country’s requirements in oilier lines, such as carpet lelt, cowhair felt, and cattle rug lining, decided to start manufacturing slippers for the New Zealand market.

“The first factory will he in Wellington and it will be under the charge of an experienced manufacturer hitherto operating in Sydney. It is anticipated that other factories will la established in other centres as the public demand requires it. “Our present plans contemplate an output of about 4000 pairs a week foi a start, but in a couple oif years we anticipate that this will be increased threefold. My company is engaged solely in Australia in the manufacture of the felt, but it purposes to start also tbe manufacturing of the slippers in New Zealand. We purchase large quantities oif New Zealand wool, which is taken to Australia and there made into felt. Much of this felt will noiv be returned to the land whence it came in the raw state to be made into slippers lor New Zealand people.”