SALVAGED WOOL

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVI, Issue 3440, 8 March 1932, Page 3

SALVAGED WOOL

~.. — +~ A LOWER HUTT INDUSTRY. When fire broke out on the Commonwealth and Dominion liner Port Fremantle between 3500 and 4000 bales of wool were affected by fire, but mostly by water. The wool came mainly from Wanganui, where the vessel had been loading cargo. Covered by insurance, the claims on the wool were met and it then became the property of "those concerned." It is on their account that the wool was taken out of the vessel in Wellington and conveyed out to, the establishment of J. J. Bourke and Co., Ltd., for reconditioning and repacking so that it will ultimately go into manufacture, although belated. The undertaking was heavy and urgent, as it was of the utmost importance to recondition the wool salved without unnecessary loss of time. It was well saturated, having been under water for three days, and some of it was affected by smoke; it had to be unbaled, and this was no easy matter, for, as is the practice, the bale of wool for shipment is dumped under very great pressure and two bales are thus made about the same size as one and are held together by steel straps. Not only have these dumped bales to be unpacked, but the wool has to be pulled apart and loosened so that it may be thoroughly exposed to air and light and kept constantly turned like hay. The Port Fremantle wool to-day is spread over some five acres at the Hutt and kept constantly on the move. As it is ready for treatment it is washed in soap and warm water and then in cold, and next dried at a temperature of about 200 degrees Fahrenheit and subjected to a cold blast of air and then allowed to cool for some time before repacking for export. The work on the Port Fremantle wool has been going on for some time, men working three shifts a day, Sundays included.

The process of scouring, it is hardly necessary to say, is the elimination of dirt and other rubbish from the wool. It is an essentially "natural" local industry and it is difficult for the layman to understand why all wool bought in the country is not scoured or cleaned before shipment of these impurities which form perhaps a third or more of its weight. The shipping freight is charged as much on the dirt in the greasy or • untreated wool as on the wool itself. But wool buyers know their own business best and many of them prefer the wool in the state just as it comes from the sheep's back with burrs, sand, and other impurities in it, manufacturers overseas specialising in preparing the wool for spinners.

There has been considerable talk in the past of the problem of dealing with so-called old wools, that is, of wool shorn in the 1930-31 season. How much of this wool remains?? in the Dominion to-day is not easy to ascertain, but a substantial quantity of it has passed through J. J. Bourke's hands at the Hutt and been dispatched as scoured wool, and "The Post" is informed that there was nothing to diffentiate the old from from the new wool when both had passed through the scouring process. The treatment of the Port Fremantle wool came opportunely and enabled a considerable temporary addition to be made to the employees at the works. But if the practice of cleaning all wool from its many impurities before shipping it were to become general it would provide work for a large number of men in the various parts of the Dominion, and that in an industry that properly appertains to wool-growing, to say nothing of the economy (as it appears to those not actually in the trade) of ridding the wool of its rubbish before putting on board ship.