Wool Textile Trade In U.K. Criticised

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31632, 19 March 1968, Page 16

Wool Textile Trade In U.K. Criticised

Sharp criticism of the wool textile industry in Britain was expressed last evening by Professor B. P. Philpott, professor of agricultural economics and director of the Agricultural Economics Research Unit at Lincoln College, when he spoke to the Canterbury- section of the New Zealand Institute of Agricultural Science.

Professor Philpott, who was in Yorkshire last year when the market for crossbred wools was at its worst, said it had been a matter of great concern to him to find that wool textile people in Britain did not appear to know what was happening in the market for crossbredtype tops, yarn and cloth, or if they did know what was happening there was very little knowledge of the reasons and background.

This position was not surprising, he said, as he found little evidence of any of the big topmaking and spinning firms having adopted modern market research techniques and, indeed, he doubted if there had been much change in business management methods in Yorkshire since he was there in the 19505. At that time he had been under the impression that they had not changed for 100 years.

“Dejected State” “The whole industry seemed to me to be in a most dispirited and dejected state —a condition of affairs that cannot be attributed just to the problems of 1967,” said Professor Philpott, “and which I could not help comparing with the general elan and spirit of optimism which I observed in a subsequent visit to a large synthetic manufacturing firm.” Professor Philpott said these impressions had been gained on a necessarily brief visit, but a recent article in the “Economist” had come to the same conclusion about the lack of management skills in Yorkshire. “I have begun to wonder how well New Zealand crossbred growers’ interests are being served by leaving the processing of crossbred wool and marketing of the product almost entirely to overseas firms,” he continued after referring again to the lack of vitality and dynamism in Yorkshire. especially in comparison with synthetic producers. Time To Export “I wonder if the time has not come for us to look much more adventurously at the whole question of the future development of the New Zealand wool textile industry towards larger integrated specialised units concentrating on crossbred products enjoying long runs for export “If I ever had any doubts as to the high level of technical skill and the quality of equipment operated by the New Zealand mills, these have been removed after having seen the Bradford situation.

“I have in the past always opposed, on simple economic

grounds, any extension of protection by import control of the New Zealand woollen mills, but I think that strong arguments can now bq adduced for special tariff protection for those products which use local crossbred wool (especially carpets) and which we can hope to export. “Exporting has now been immeasurably assisted by devaluation, the benefits of which should be grasped while the going is good. And

I am quite sure that, apart from the already high level of technical ability, the better New Zealand mills would be more likely to adopt the needed marketing and managerial research than is the case with their counterparts in Yorkshire. “In the last analysis there is also far more long run Identity of interest between the New Zealand mills and the New Zealand grower than with the overseas mills.” Though noting that he could be wrong as it was something based on a fairly impressionistic view of the state of affairs in Yorkshire, Professor Philpott said that it still appeared to him to be most timely for a study to be made of ways of encouraging the New Zealand mills into exporting, if possible, on a massive scale.