HOW THEY SERVE OUR WOOL IN WELLINGTON.

Marlborough Express, Volume VI, Issue 295, 3 June 1871, Page 7

HOW THEY SERVE OUR WOOL IN WELLINGTON.

(From the Evening Post.) The extreme carelessness displayed with reference to wool and fiax intended for shipment at this port strikes many people with surprise. Large piles of bales may at almost any time be seen on the wharf, exposed to all weathers, and only partially protected by a covering of sails. These may be sufficient to ward off a slight shower or two, or prevent dew or frost from having an injurious effect, but against such violent storms of wind and rain as we have experienced on several recent occasions,

they afford very inadequate security. The rain sometimes lasts for days together, and, however carefully the sails may bo placed, while they rest on the bales, it is impossible to prevent the wet getting through. Let any of these piles alongside vessels at the wharf be watched when this covering is removed, and a portion of the bales will in all cases be found more or less damaged ; and it is not merely an outside wetting that they receive: most of them are loosely packed, and the wet penetrates far through them. A little exposure to the sun and air afterwards, will dry the outside, but the centre remains wet. The worst bales are of course, rejected by the chief officers of the vessels, but still there is scarcely a wool and flax loaded ship which leaves I his port, but has on board some bales unfit for shipment. There is thus always a risk of fire, as the combustive properties of damp wool have been too often tested to allow of a doubt on the subject; but even if the fire does not break out, the wool or flax is certain to rot on the passage —in the case of flax not only proving a loss to the owner or insurer, but damaging the character of a production from which much is expected. We have it on good authority that numerous bales of flax which left the mills whore they were packed, clean serviceable fibre, arrive in London black, rotten, and musty, unfit for any manufacturing purpose ; and wool is often in a similar position. It seems singular to those who are acquainted with the care exercised to keep wool dry by the growers, in shearing, packing, and shipping ; who know how a wet fleece is put aside to dry, and a bale damaged in the boat or in the surf is brought back for the same purpose—to see all care abandoned as soon as it reaches Wellington wharf. It certainly saves expense to avoid storing, but it is a penny-wise and a pound-foolish plan, and the unfortunate producer suffers in the end, whether the wool is rejected or forced to be dried or repacked, or sent home wet, to arrive rotten. The officoi’s of the ship, of course, are anxious to reject as little as possible, and will take it in any state compatible with safety, but it really is the duty of those who have charge of it to see that it is kept in a dry and secure place until it is pressed and put on board the vessel. Even if a portion of the wharf were covered in at the joint expense of wool-shippers, to form a place where bales could be dumped and kept dry until stowed away on board, the money so spent would be well bestowed.