ARTIFICIAL SILK V. WOOL.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 250, 22 October 1928, Page 4

ARTIFICIAL SILK V. WOOL.

How far does, or will, the vast outturn of artificial silk affect the value of wool? The question is dealt with at length by the Bradford correspondent of the "Sydney Morning Herald," who shows that last year there was produced 250 million pounds of artificial silk yarn. Probably in two years, when the projected mills have begun to work, the production of artificial silk will be nearly double what it is to-day. Is it conceivable that the present weight of yarn produced is not directly affecting the consumption of both wool and cotton? Every spinner in Bradford deplores every day the loss of business due to the displacement of single botany yarns for ladies' hose by artificial silk. Recently the writer went round one of the largest hosiery manufacturing firms in Leicester, employing over 1000 hands. The principal said that they were not using 10 per cent of their former quantity of single botany yarns for the production of ladies' hose. Practically their whole output was artificial silk. The writer calculates that artificial silk yarns have displaced in the West Riding anything in the neighbourhood of 33 per cent of the machinery engaged up to three years ago in the production of single merino yarns used solely in the production of ladies' hose. Formerly all tinder-garments were made from the same class of botany J . ai j ns '., k l 't to-day it is very largely artififi ji' a . ' n s°me cases artificial silk blended with wool, and whenever and wherever artificial silk is used it means a corresponding reduction in the use of merino wool.