WOOL V. SILK

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 490, 20 October 1928, Page 25

WOOL V. SILK

COMPETITION NOT FELT MORE WOOL WANTED The Agent-General for Queensland, Mr. J. Huxham, as the London representative of an important woolproducing State, has been studying the artificial silk industry in Great Britain, and finds that so far it has not had any appreci. ble effect on the demand for wool, certainly not on the demani, for the higher grades. Aboi t 20 companies, with an aggregate authorised capital of between £60,000,000 and £70,000,000, are competing in the manufacture of artificial silk and silk fabrics in Great Britain. In America eight companies are similarly engaged, and their financial resources are probably quite equal to those of the British undertakings. France, Germany, and Italy are also turning out various classes of artificial silk on a large scale. Some authorities in the textile industry, Mr. Huxham states, have been urging that Australian interests should give serious consideration to the competition of artificial silk, and its bear-

ing upon the relative economic values of merino and crossbred wools. Wool Consumption The result of his own inquiries indicates that in practically every country except the United States the demand at present is for more, rather than less, wool for manufacturing purposes. The. fight for trade in artificial silk has become very keen in Britain and Continental countries; and according to reports in some of the English newspapers a question has arisen as to how far the competition can be carried without making production unprofitable. Incessant striving to put nov-’ty fabrics on the market is keeping up output costs. Referring to this aspect of the industry, a correspondent of “The Times’ Trade Supplement” gives a bewildering list of the new “lines” now being marketed by the British companies. Artificial silk warp sateens are being made in large quantities, chiefly with an acetate warp, and some makers are also developing the all-artificial silk voile cloths. These artificial silk voiles will be on the market in tlie near future In considerable quantities and in new designs. Velvets are recognised as having a foremost place in the fashion programme for coming months. New Experiments with Silk Crepes are now printed with designs which were formerly used only on woollen fabrics, while the latter are rapidly evolving designs much more complicated than formerly, though at present, holding largely to geometric patterns.

Printing on the back of artificial silk velvets, the pile of which doe- not take the colour, produces a distinctive novelty. Stiff satin with an artificial eiik surface of high lustre assumes importance x r the trade. A few lines of dress materials include novelties of wool and silk, with touches of artificial silk for lustrous contrast. One or two new cloths made from staple fibre are beginning to sell In moderate quantities, and more manufacturers are experimenting in this class. Staple fibre used fairly freely for blending with worsted in small percentages, and many of the mottled effects now being produced in cloth are obtained from mixtures of wool or worsted and staple fibre. The spun silk trade is also using the fibre in fair quantities', and many Lancashire and Yorkshire manufacturers are experimenting and finding out new uses.