SUPPLY OF TYRES

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25248, 29 July 1947, Page 8

SUPPLY OF TYRES

250,000 A YEAR FROM AUSTRALIA Under arrangements made by the Federal Government, about 250,000 Australian tyres a year will be supplied te New Zealand until 1948 or later. This information was given to shareholders of the Olympic Tyre and Rubber Company, Ltd., in Melbourne, on Friday, by the chairman. Sir Frank Beaurepaire. He added that the Olympic, Dunlop, and Goodyear companies were producing about 40 per cent, more car and truck tyres than before the war. It would take some time to overcome the lag created by the war-time demand for ty /dl tyre controls in Australia were removed in September, 1946 Early in that year it was announced from Melbourne that Australia had undertaken to keep users of essential motor vehicles in New Zealand supplied with tyres until the end of 1945. This was done under the wartime arrangements between the Governments of Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Three tyre manufacturing concerns were officially licensed in New Zealand in 1945 and two factories are under construction. The progress of both Reid Rubber and Dunlop Rubber has been seriously retarded by delays in the supply of building materials and of machinery and plant from overseas. The Reid company, whose plant is being established in Auckland, expected to begin production this year, but delays and disappointments have now caused the company to revise this forecast. Of the plans of the third company licensed, the Firestone Tyre and Rubber Company of New Zealand, Ltd., little has been an> nounced. Meantime, the supply of certain popular sizes of car tyres is very difficult and control is being rigidly maintained. Pneumatic tubes and some sizes of truck tyres, of which there has been an adequate supply, were removed from control earlier this year. Tyres imported into New Zealand in the first, two of 1947 numbered 42.449, against 981,082 for the same period in 1938. WOOLPACK SUPPLIES IMPORTANT NEW INVENTiW British ingenuity has produced a new invention, which it is believed may rnstkedly expand production of woven fabrics and will possibly have an important bearing on the supply of woolpacks ty the Dominions. This invention, informs* ,tion concerning which was received by tM New Zealand Wool Board at its monthly n eeting in Wellington, is the Baddeley shuttleless loom. According to the International Wool Secretariat, U can produce fabrics that cannot be successfully made on any previously known power loom. The Baddeley loom owns a big advantage over other kinds when dealing with heavy fabrics and is of great use in mass production work. Its widening of the range of possibilities is shown by the fact that it has made materials from paper and twine, asbestos, Jute, seaweed, and glased Before the war some 150 packs, woven by the loom, were sent as samples to the Dominion and those shipped back to England received favourable comment. Paper and wool yarns are twisted together us both warp and weft and the pack therefore retains a fair strength when wet. in this respect it is claimed that it miy be better than the cotton and paper woven pack now being made in South Africa, in which the fabric is of parer one way and of cotton the other, and which, it is understood, cannot be safely moved while still wet. A sample of this wool-and-paper woven woolpack material. recently received oy the New Zealand Wool Board, has a flexible but well-bound weave. The paper threads, tightly twisted and reinforced with woollen ones, combine in resembling a hard-wearing type of canvas matting. COMPANY NEWS Bank of N.S.W. Dividend.—The Bank of New South Wales has declared the usual interim quarterly dividend of 6s 6d a share, payable August 28.