WOOL RESEARCH

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVIII, Issue 4605, 4 October 1934, Page 5

WOOL RESEARCH

BATTLE FOR MARKETS. VALUE OF QUALITY. Gratification at the Prime Minister's assurance that he was definitely in favour of research work in connection with the wool industry was expressed by Mr. W. J. Broadfoot, M.P. for Waitomo, in the House of Representatives. "This is a time when there is one continual battle for markets," he said, "and, notwiithstanding quotas and tariffs, quality and purity will win the day. If we look round we will see how we have allowed our industries to suffer. Take the flax industry—one of Nature's gifts to this country. For eighty years we have done our best to exterminate it. How much money have we spent on research? We could have improved our flax as a textile and as a cellulose product, but we have done nothing. In recent years we have done a little research work at College, but on the whole it has b?cn starved." Mr. Broadfoot said that he was showing that what had happened to flax would inevitably happen to wool. It had happened to the gum industry, which was in a moribund condition. The Wool Intelligence Section of the Imperial Economics Committee, referring to Germany's wool substitutes, stated: "The tissues made from them are strong and of good appearance, but admittedly deficient compared with all-wool fabrics. They crease easily, and garments made from them are liable to lose their shape. The wearing properties are unsatisfactory. In normal times such tissues would only be employed in the low clothing trade. It is unlikely that they will find an outlet in foreign markets, unless the price advantage is considerable, which is not the case at the moment" Mr. Broadfoot said that he remembered the time when people laughed at the suggestion of artificial silk being a competitor of cotton and wool, but to-day it was doing prievous harm to the woollen industry. He claimed that the industry as a whole should tackle the difficulties which stood in the way of an improved product. In the Old Country the manufacturers had spent enormous sums in improving their technique, and he thought that the producers of the raw material should attend to the improvement of the wool at this end. In South Africa—which in normal times was a serious competitor with Australia and New Zealand —there was a levy of tenpence a bale, and if New Zealand remained indifferent, in a few years the country would find itself far back in the race for markets. Mr. Broadfoot said that he was sorry that the legislation by which it was proposed to set up a wool research organisation was not to proceed, and he hoped that those in the industry who were favourably disposed towards it would make a bolder bid at the earliest moment to see that it was again brought forward and put on the Statute Book. He did not altogether like the idea of Government Boards—the methods of the Danes Were better. The Danes had developed the co-operative side of the industry, and the boards were self constituted.