NORTH CANTERBURY INDUSTRIES.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 34, 17 March 1914, Page 2

NORTH CANTERBURY INDUSTRIES.

(Continued from page 4 of Supplement)

KAIAPOI WOOLLEN FACTORY. The Kaiapoi Woollen Factory strikes one first of all as being pleasingly uu-factory-like. Perhaps that is because one thinks of a factory as a busy hive of commerce in, a city street devoid of all beauty and charm,, but instead intimately associated with smoke and soot and factory reek. The Kaiapoi Factory, on the other hand, is situated about a mile away from the little town of the same name, the Eiver Cam, an off-shoot of the Waimakiriri, at the back of it, and fronted by the natural beauties of the Kaiapoi bush. The factory is approached by way of a gravelled: walk surrounded by wellkept flowerbeds —of which, by the way, the management are rather proud, probably because it is a rather unique thing to associate flowers with woollen factories. Ancient History. The Kaiapoi Woollen mill, to be paradoxical, began life as a flax mill. After a period of viccissitudes and adventures it emerged as a woollen mill in July, 1878, the following gentlemen being the original shareholders: —Messrs J. H Blackwell, Wm. Sansom, George and Kobert Coup, Isaac Wilson, John Wesley Ellem, Edwin Parnham, J. H. Evans, James Wood, Hon. J. T. Peacock, and C. W. Turner. Of all these, Messrs J. ;H. Blackwell and Wm. Sanones left of the present company who are still associated ■with the mill. In 1881, the management was taken over by Mr James Leithead, and only then did "the factory commence on the prosperous era of its career. Mr Leitheadj who had had a comprehensive and thorough training in mill managing in thV older countries of the world before coming to Canterbury, directed it"} destinies for twenty years, and during that time the industry grew and expanded steadily, and the "Kaiapoi" woollen goods became more and more Widely known throughout New Zealand. The Present Aspect. Mr James Leithead was succeeded as manager by his son, Mr T. R. Leithead, Who holds the position at the present time, Mr Hercus being in charge of the Christchurch warehouse, which may be termed K *a development or outcome of the industry which began at Kaiapoi. The mill is to-day an important feature of the industrial life of North Canterbury. The manufactures include the well-known Kaiapoi rugs and blankets, tweeds, cloths, materials for suits, overcoats, costumes, golf hose, knitted nnderw,«a£, Sweaters, and many other lines. " About 160 men and boys ', arid 120 wosenf a*nd girls are employed, arid the manager states that the business could , be, greatly expanded if more labour was available. The directors have at the present time plans and specifications for enlarging the factory and extending the sphere of its operations, but are deterred from putting the work in hand'by the unpromising outlook in the labour market. 4 The "Golden Fleece." The mill utilises about'4ooo bales of wool per annum in its manufactures, Which is purchased direct from the farmers and at sales throughout the Dominion. To follow the wool from the sheep's back until.it emerges as a rug, or a blanket, or a, piece of cloth, is father an interesting journey, and the different steps in its progress may be traced at the mill at Kaiapoi. The fabled story of the golden fleece involuntarily leaps into one's mind when one beholds the wool room, where Dales and bales of it are piled, just as the teams or transport lorries brought it in. It is "golden-" indeed, although not exaetly in the fabled way. Other pictures, too, flit through one's mind as one looks,- arid the inevitably '' sheepy'' smell of the greasy wool fills one's ' Pictures of the sheep runs,''"the sheds—the wonderful whirring machines, the shearers, those kings of the board, with their usual following of pickers-up, roHeus-up, tar-boys, rouseabouts, and all. They are closely associated with the story of the wool, from the time it parts company with the sheep and goes to swell the farmers' and squatters' revenue.

From Raw Material to Finished . Product. From the wool room the fleeces go to the sorting room at the factory, where the .wool is culled and sorted, piled in heaps—the fine with the fine, the stronger classes by themselves. Deftly and swiftly work the sorters, the eenses of sight and touch trained so unerringly that a mistake is never made. All the wool, up to this stage, is in a greasy state, but when the sorters are through with it, scouring takes place, large vats, filled with water containing a strong proportion of soap and other cleansing agents, receive the wool, and after it has had a thorough bath in this liquid it passes through huge rollers, which act as wringers. A second bath and a second makes it look quite white" and clean. Then it is dyed the required colour by being placed in huge perforated cylinders which revolve in a pan of dyeing fluid, and the next process, that of drying, is accomplished by means of a steam-heated chamber. The ayeing finished, the wool goes through A i 'teazing' ; machine, by means of yhich all the lumps o* matted pieces jure "teazed", out and rendered smooth £nd even, and also Oiled, to assist the through the different processes of jmanufiacture. The fclenfling of colours follows, fgi instancei ESfil fcjl M«rt

colour will, when mixed with white,

give "Shetland; black and white will give grey, and so on. And then comes the marvellous process of carding. The wool—scoured, "teazed," dyed, and oited—is fed into the machine, and comes out in long ropes of soft, silkylooking stuff, which goes through the same process a second and then a third time, emerging each time softer and finer and more even. The white wool, when carded, looks soft and frail and delicate at spindrift. After carding, another machine divides it into soft threads (or '' slubbings'•' as they are called in the factory), and then they are spun into threads. In connection with the spinning, it is interesting to note that the Kaiapoi mill has one of the new machines for spinning by the system of ring frames. This is an invention wliich promises to supersede, in time, the old-system of spinning, which is founded on the principle of Arkwright's invention-f-with, of course, modern improvements. ' The new invention has noi- been on the market for more than six months; and the machine in the Kaiapoi factory is the first one brought south of the line. After the wool is spun and wound on spools,'it is brought into the yarn store, and from there the colours are selected to be woven into the material required, first being marked and then woven. Men or women stand at the weaving machinesfi and the flying shuttle shoots backwards and forwards weaving the threads into cloth somewhat on the principle of darning. Blankets, rugs, cloths are all being made at different machines, and in another department the knitting machines go on turning out their specialities. After the woven article comes from the looms, it goes into the burling room, where a number of women and girls work. They go carefully over each article, repairing any little defeit or blemish, and then it is scoured and milled and dried. The. next process is to raise the nap of such materials as rugs, blankets, vicunas, and similar fabrics. The difference between an article before and after going through the nap-raising machine is something to marvel over. Pressing in hydraulic presses between steam-heated presses comes nearly last. After that there is merely the packing and sending to the warehouse. ...'.' The Designer's Boom. A description of the factory would be incomplete without a reference to the designer's room, where the patterns are designed and woven by hand to be submitteid to customers. A couple of men design, and three or four weave the different patterns in short lengths, which contain 18 or 20 colours in the some design. The Women "Workers. As previously stated in this article, the factory employs, about 120 women and girls, the minimum age .being 14 years. They toil mostly on the piecework system, which appears to be the most* satisfactory all round. It is really quite wonderful,'." Mr 'Leithead states, the way a girl or woman- will work if she actually sets herself out to earn money. She; gets positively '' work-hungry.?' The", conditions under which they work are hygienic and as comfortable as circumstances permit, their activities being principally employed in the hosiery, weaving, and burling departments. Their hours are 48 a week, as provided by the Act. No forewoman is employed, the workers ibeing - answerable laeithead or the heads of the departments as regards their- work aM Mauy of them have been working "in the factory for years, and „ years, and as regards the men, many who started as boys now occupy responsible positions as heads of departments. Mr Leithead confesses that he considers the men employees easier to deal with than the women. The writer pointed' out that it might be his partiality for his own sex that made him say so, but this Mr Leithead stoutly denied. "A woman will always beat you for ft day off or whatever else she sets her heart on," he stated; but he said it with a laugh that showed one he really didn't- eare very much, and proved what.he said, earlier in the day, namely, "that, take them by and large, he was Very well satisfiel with the class of employees he'had to"deal with.