BURRS IN WOOL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18801, 2 March 1923, Page 6

BURRS IN WOOL

STATEMENT BY MB M. A, GARB. ' GREATLY EXAGGERATED. COLONEL E. V. WILLEY’S EXPLANATION. (From Due Own Correspondent.) On his return to Wellington Mr M. A Carr, formerly president of the Chamber of Commerce, seems to have made a public statement regarding burrs in New Zealand wool Some of the New /t& aland buyers he had met in Bradford, he is reported to hav e said, were gravely apprehensive as to the future, owing to the discovery among some Now Zealand wool of Australian burr. Readers here are told; -One buyer said tnat live years ago he would have bougfit any clip of wool from New Zealand without seeing it. To-day, there was not one buyer tooiisn enough to do that.” This statement 1 brought to the notice of Colonel F. Vernon Willey, ex-M.P. for South Bradtoid, and Controller of Wool Supplies during file war period. ” I have read the statement,” he says, " with surprise, as I believe most people in the Bradford trade would. The question of a few isolated clips carrying burrs is nothing now. This state of things has been known to exist for over 20 years, but even so, the quantity of burrs carried in any of the New Zealand clips is quite negligible, just as it is in one or two cases in the British clips. ‘ LESS EFFICIENT CLASSING. “If any statement has been made by a Bradfotd buyer to the edect that he would not buy New Zealand wool without seeing it, personally i should imagine tne true reason tor it might much more accurately be found to be due to bad grading or classing or qualities, etc. For instance, wools today which are very often catalogued as hogs, tiecly contain a larger proportion of wetlior wool. There is no doubt that during the last two or three years the work ot classing has been less ccfiuently done. Probably the two chief reasons which can be found for this are: the scarcity of skilled clascers compared with pre-war uays; and the greatly increased cost of labour.

•• Coupled with this, we must take into consideration the uuremunerative prices outlined for Now Zealand crossbreds since the control days. These particular growers ha-ve been most unfortunate in marketing tbeir commodity, and it is only natural that they should reruse to put any extra cost of labour into wool which, as is commonly known, was selling during the lowest period of the last season at about lid per lb in the auctions. No doubt in many cases these rail to cover out-of-pocket expenses such as shearing, packing, transit and brokers’ sailing commission. It is, however, highly desirable that every effort should bo made to eradicate burrs from any of the stations where they are in evidence, and as it is generally understood that the climate in New Zealand is not so favourable as that of Australia to foster this evil, it should be all the easier to eliminate. In conclusion, I can only say that from our own wide experience the statement made by Mr Carr appears to us to be greatly exaggerated,” Colonel W alley's father, now Baron Barn-by, has for many years been one of the leading, wool authorities in Bradford, and his firm has had the handling of vast supplies from the dominion.