The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE FRIDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1918 A RESURRECTED INDUSTRY

Taihape Daily Times, 27 December 1918, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1918 A RESURRECTED INDUSTRY

(With which la incorporated The Taihape Pont LQd Waliaswmo News).

The Chemist to the Department of Agriculture seems to be more than ordinarily a useful and busy man. He does not content himself with attending to ordinary analytical and assaying work.that many chance to come along, for first' one State Department journal then another records his dclvings into every branch of art and industry with a view to ascertaining to what extent (science can play a part. The industrial history .of recent times indicates that the people of Britain have not availed themselves of that application of science to art and industry that some other nations have done, and now concurrent with Judge Stringer’s .statement in the Arbitration Court that prices of life necessaries are -soaring so unreasonably high that working people must have their wages risen, Mr. Aston tells us, in the "New Zealand Journal of Science j and Technology,” that wool-spinning ;is once .more to become a home industry. He says “it is hoped that New Zealand homespuns made by returned soldiers from wool, and dyed with -dyes grown in this country may become as fashionable and command as good a price as the celebrated Harris tweeds. He says the conditions for home-dying woollen goods in New Zealand compare particularly favourable lyith those .in North -Britain. j There is, in the very high prices of ►•‘spun • woollens as compared with the [price of the raw material, a very j strong incentive, indeed for a resusci- '■ tation of the home-spinning industry, [ What a field of memory the suggestj ion opens up; the old spinning wheel j and the small home power looms may i come back as familiar objects in the home-life of the Britisher, who has, I since authentic history was written, ■been famed for his wool-spinning. At . the time of the Roman occupation I England had woollen manufactories at | work, and there is almost conclusive I proof that Britishers were weavers in prehistoric times. It has been the ; opinion of historians that many of 1 the beautiful and costly robes worn in Rome itself were manufactured in Britain. Mothers, wives and daughters of old time British kings were taught the art of wool-spinning; in j fact, the preparation of woollen yarn I was a ’very popular pastime and a favourite domestic occupation. The production of wool stood very high as a national industry, and it was to Britain in those long iga days what it is to New Zealand at the presi-nt time. In the twelfth century Britain commenced exporting wool, and ever s.nce that time till ihe wool export ‘trade was killed largely by over taxation, the wool producing industry has been the shuttlecock of kings and politicians, and it may not be generally known that a British king redeemed Queen Phillipa’s crown, that had been pawned in Cologne, with j wool. Once more, Mr. Aston tells ns, j there is a strong likelihood of nomcj spinning coining into fashion. The • spinster in name only may once more ‘ become the spinster in very being, and ; the appellation at time of marriage . may again become something more than a more meaningless convention. . The spinning wheel was brought from i eastern countries to Britain; it was a great advance in those days in yarn spinning methods, and had there been ;no Stuarts on the British throne the i old familiar wheel might not yet have falljen Unto, ddsudtude. What- jafijqctjs the chief industry of this country, or, in fact, any minor industry is of the ■utmost importance to all of us, and when no less an authority than Mr. ;Yston tells us through a State journal that there is at the present time a strong movement in this country towards the establishment of homo spinneries, iand for ithe produc-

tion of home-made dyes, we mentally see an immensely extended use and demand for the product of our sheepfarming. We have long been of opinion that it should be one of the first duties of the State to encourage an extended application of the sciences to our production and to our manufactures. Germans saw how Britain could be pushed out of the markets of the world; how Germany could rapidly become the greatest industrial country on earth, and had German statesmen paid equal attention to production of raw materials

as they gave to their factories there

might have been & different history written. Will Britain and New Zealand benefit by Germany’s experience and develop side by side with homespinneries an extension of wool production? One cannot flourish without the other soj long as cither is to be at the mercy of production and weaving in foreign lands. Because we are of opinion that the introduction of honie-spinneries and home-dying will materially help to stabilise in times to come this country’s wool industry, wo hope every effort will be strained in putting their institution on a thoroughly practical footing at the very earliest moment Mr Aston remarks that the person who has once worn homespun tweeds w T ould for comfort never wish for anything better. He opens up to us a grand and gratifying industrial vista in which maimed, injured, and other returned soldiers may animate the moving scenes, 'and for Ms materialisation alone it is distinctly w r orth -while. From home-spinneries there may develop soldier manufactories and soldier cooperation for export, establish ing a competition of a genuine character in which the third person is entirely eliminated- —that person who takes the lion’s share of profit and does nothing for it-- Thoughtful people will await with deepest interest the materialisation of the strong movement Mr Aston tells us there is for the establishment of home spinneries.