WOOLLEN GOODS TO BE LABELLED: NEW LEGISLATION

Greymouth Evening Star, 1 April 1950, Page 3

WOOLLEN GOODS TO BE LABELLED: NEW LEGISLATION

WELLINGTON, March 31 (P.A.). —Buyers of wool products will in future know what they are getting for their money, because the Wool Labelling Act, which comes into force on April 1, requires those products to be clearly marked with their customary trade description and with their percentage weight of wool, says a statement issued by the New Zealand Wool Board.

The principal exemption from this requirement is any product containing less than 50 per cent, of wool and not called wool or worsted. If' it is called wool or worsted it must be with its percentage weight of wool.

Other exemptions include all footwear (but not socks or stockings)j all pile fabrics, and all worn or used made-up goods offered for resale. Terms Now Illegal The use of the words “artificial wool,” “imitation wool,” “synthetic wool,” “substitute wool,” or of any expression including the word “wool” or of any abbreviation or variation of the word to describe a non-wool product, is now illegal except for the well recognised trade terms, cotton wool, steel wool, glass wool, wood wool, and slag wool. If the wool article is sold in a sealed container the container must be labelled unless tjie article and its label are clearly visible. The new law applies to wool products manufactured in or imported into New Zealand from April 1 onwards, but because of the time normally taken for goods to go through the wholesale channels to retailers, it may be a few months before the labelled products appear in shops in quantity. Traders are given two years in which to sell without labels products manufactured here or imported into this country before April 1. Not Restrictive Mr W. Horrobin, deputy-chairman of the New Zealand Wool Board, said tonight that the Wool Labelling Act followed similar legislation in Australia, South Africa and also in the United States. It was not to be restrictive in any way, but would protect all those engaged in buying and selling wool products against inferior substitutes falsely described as wool. In drawing up the law, said Mr Horrobin, the interest of manufacturers of. woollen goods, who would be mostly directly affected, had been carefully watched, and a delegation from the woollen manufacturing industry of Britain, which had come specially to New Zealand to discuss, the legislation before it went to Parliament last year, had expressed its satisfaction with the act finally passed. “It is a simple law, with a simple object, and we do not think there would be any trouble over it,” he said.