Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit TUESDAY, MAY 4, 1943. POST-WAR WOOL INDUSTRY.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 63, Issue 173, 4 May 1943, Page 2

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit TUESDAY, MAY 4, 1943. POST-WAR WOOL INDUSTRY.

Very few of the schemes for reconstruction after the war will not have interest, direct or indirect, for New Zealand, but proposals for solution of the problems confronting the woollen industry are of vital concern. One of the difficulties that must be surmounted arises from the difference of viewpoint and interest between the producer of the raw material and the producer of the finished product. It is satisfactory, therefore, to learn that Bradford agrees with growers’ associations in the Dominions that control should continue for a period of years after the war. Bradford proposes to form a reconstruction committee to study post-war trade problems in association with the British Board of Trade. The use of the word “reconstruction” is well-advised, because the wool industry has been profoundly affected by the impact of war. Growers are concerned at the accumulation of vast stocks of the raw material. Bradford, and Continental manufacturers also no doubt, have to think of the retooling of factories and reassembling the labour force to man them. Out of 250,000 textile workers in Bradford, for instance, twothirds have been diverted to the fighting services or munition works. Yet immediately after the war the industry must try to meet the demand of a wool-hungry world and at a price that will compete with synthetic fibres, in the production of which the war has proved a forcing bouse. In this difficult situation, the object should be to rebuild the industry on firm foundations, avoiding a post-war boom and the subsequent slump. To achieve it, the industry should work together as one whole from the producing end onward. When Bradford has formulated its ideas, the next step should be for manufacturers and growers to get together and, with the assistance of such greatly-interested parties as the British and United States Governments, devise schemes that will combine discipline with enterprise for the orderly marketing of wool and woollens at every stage.