JAPANESE RAW SILK

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 98, 22 October 1938, Page 9

JAPANESE RAW SILK

LOSS OF ILS. MARKET

NEW DU PONT ENTERPRISE

NEW YORK, October 21

A major upheaval in Japan's economic position through the loss of the huge United States market for raw silk is predicted by hosiery producers here, simultaneously with the announcement by the Celanese Corporation of America, manufacturers of acetate process yarns and fabrics, of the, erection in Virginia of a 10,000,000/----dollar plant to produce an entirely new synthetic yarn which can be used in all textile fields.

It is also announced that Dv Pont tf* Nemours and Co. are building a 7,000,000-dollar plant at Delaware to produce a new synthetic fibre, also adaptable to various textile uses, but intended chiefly for hosiery, which is virtually the only division of textiles in which rayon has not yet made serious inroads.

Hosiery, especially feminine hosiery, has remained the nearly exclusive outlet for raw silk, because the synthetic yarns hitherto produced have been too lustrous, too inelastic, and with insufllcient sheer. Experiments with the Pu Pont yam, however, have been successful in producing hosiery which is able to compete with all grades of silk stockings and retailing at a dollar or less. It will be a year before either yarn is commercially ready.

It is estimated that three-fourths of the 100,000,000 dollars' worth of raw silk imported annually is usqd wi hosiery, which illustrates the extent of the Japanese loss if the new yams justify expectations.