WOOL BRANDING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 August 1938, Page 3

WOOL BRANDING

COMPLAINTS BY BRITISH MANUFACTURERS. OBJECTIONS TO BITUMEN. & PAINT. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. The complaints frequently made by wool manufacturers in England and elsewhere about the use on sheep of branding fluids having a bitumen base, were referred to by Mr H. M. Christie, M.P., chairman of the New Zealand Wool Publicity Cotnmittee, in an address yesterday to members of the electoral committee of the New Zealand Meat Producers’ Board. Mr Christie, who has just returned from a conference of representatives of wool-producing countries held in London, said that it had been found that large numbers of growers still used tar and paint for branding. In South Africa, it was compulsory for the producer to remove such brands by clipping them from the fleeces before the wool was offered for sale, and heavy fines were imposed for failure to do so. Mr Christie said he had been shown samples of garments which contained spots as the result of paint or tar being on the wool. These spots had to be specially treated in a separate process, and it was annoying to manufacturers when such spots appeared in highquality cloth. In France, he had visited a factory which specialised in the chemical removal of tar marks. “I believe it is quite time,” added Mr Christie, “that we asked the Government to arrange, through the Department of Industrial and Scientific Research, for more information about some of these branding fluids which are on the market. Farmers should be advised against some of them. At the same time, some of the makers of proprietary brands of fluid have expended large sums on research. We don’t want to discourage that, but we should be ruthless with those who are misrepresenting their branding fluids. Furthermore, branding with tar and paint should be absolutely prohibited.” The electoral committee was unanimously in favour of some action being taken along the lines suggested by Mr Christie.