Synthetic Wool

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21510, 27 June 1935, Page 10

Synthetic Wool

I The annual conference of the Royal Agricultural Society of New Zealand, it was reported from Wellington yesterday, adopted after a brief discussion a remit from the Marlborough Agricultural and Pastoral Association, calling upon the society " to take steps, if possible, to assist " manufacturers in combating " the competition of synthetic woOl substitutes, " possibly by advertising "the value of real wool." What is depressing about this, quite apart from the scant attention paid to a matter of the first importance, is the reminder of time lost and opportunity neglected, of the divided counsels and short, views which have for years prevented the organisation of the v/00l industry for its own security. It is not, of course, to the discredit of the Marlborough association that it should, at this date, be urging the Royal Agricultural Society to " take steps, "if possible"; on the contrary, the move is wise, it actually has a new timeliness, and if a score or two of associations discover that they* are of the same mind, events may begin to march. The discredit lies upon the industry as a whole, which has had ample time to sec its own danger and plenty of advisers to keep attention awake, which has, in one grouping or another, adopted any amount of good resolution:;, which has in fact aroused the Government to work out a statutory scheme, in its ultimate form sound enough to go on with, and which is yet, to all intents and purposes, precisely where it was a decade ago. But its competitors are not; its competitors are 10 years further ahead. The explanation of this sorry example of long manoeuvring without advance is quite obvious. Although the interests of sheep farmers are [ fundamentally connected and inseparable, they are superficially varied as wool or lamb export may be the first consideration, as breeds and country and production costs vary, and so on. The result has been that one group has favoured a levy on flocks or carcases, another on clips; here the aim has been to get money spent on research into the causes of deterioration in one kind of wool, there to find a better market for wool in decreasing demand; and so on. Growers enabled by luck or skill to show a profit, greater or less as prices swung, have felt disinclined to nick their profit for the benefit of others less lucky or less skilful. Some have argued that an

industry in distress cannot afford to pay a levy. Some have looked about, with abundant precedent, for alternative contributors, and have found them in the Meat Board and the Consolidated Fund. Because of this obstinate conflict of interests and motives, either secondary or invalid, there is no agreement, no policy, no money, no progress. Yet it is perfectly clear that whether a man's main object is shipping wool or shipping lamb he has the strongest possible reason to want his market stabilised and secured; and the insurance fee, to support the necessary researches and propaganda, is properly payable by himself. The defence of lamb and wool is one and the same.