COMPETITORS WITH WOOL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23436, 26 February 1938, Page 24

COMPETITORS WITH WOOL

STAPLE FIBRE HEW INDUSTRY’S OUTPUT (Special to Daily Times) LONDON, Feb. 5. It is announced from Home that in future Italian army uniforms will be made from a mixture of wool, staple fibre and rayon. Rayon is familiar to us in New Zealand. It is one of the varieties of artificial silk, made principally from woodpulp. In England and Germany, staple fibre also is made from woodpulp. In Italy some of it—“ lanilal ” —is being made from milk or, rather, from casein, one of the constituents of milk. Signor Mussolini’s troops will presently be clad partly in milk. Nobody who has ever milked by hand need to be told that among the secondary properties of milk is a certain stickiness which, by a long stretch of the imagination, one can, perhaps, visualise being worked up into some sort of fabric. Even then, the imagination stops short of what might be likely to happen if the fabric encountered a heavy shower of rain. Lanilal. however, is far from being a product of the imagination. It is an established and durable fabric, which, mixed with wool, is already being used in Italy for the manufacture of clothing. Whether it is an economic proposition is another question. The casein content of milk is small—about 3 per cent.—and the price of milk high in comparison with the prices of other fabric sources. So far, English observers are content to leave lanilal in the class of ex perimental materials. All the same, lanilal is being manufactured, made up and worn. It would be as well, then, not to be over-sceptical of the assertions of German scientists that they are hopeful of making wool substitutes from chalk and coal. ' WOOD FIBRE A PRACTICAL COMPETITOR

Unhappily there are no grounds for doubting the commercial competition of wood-base staple fibre. Four mills in England are making it —their total output last year was about 34,000,000 pounds—and it sells to the trade at lOd a pound This is not being done by the aid of Government subsidy, nor in fevered pursuance of a policy of economic nationalism. The staple fibre mills pay their way as part of the ordinary industry of the country. Accordingly it cannot be argued that the manufacture of staple fibre in Germany on a much larger scale, at a selling price equal to 13d a pound, is other than commercially sound In Germany, as in Italy, the search for synthetic products is being pushed to almost unimaginable lengths, and it is safe to say tha' in the early stage few if any are produced profitably. Staple fibre, however, has long outgrown that

early stage. In 1935 the German output was 33,000,000 pounds; in 1936, 100.000. pounds; and last year 200.000. pounds. This year it is estimated that Germany will produce 325,000,000 pounds, which will be more than the total New Zealand wool clip. The comparison becomes even more impressive when the cost of scouring wool and the loss of weight it entails are taken into account. Scoured crossbred wool is worth in London to-day from 15d to 20d a pound; scoured Merino from 20d to 24d And it is with scoured wool that the 300,000,000 odd pounds of German staple fibre competes—at 13d a pound! The Italian output last year was about 150,000,000 pounds, some of it lanilal, but, by far the greater part wood-base staple fibre. Japan runs second to Germany. In the first nine months' of 1936, total Japanese production was 26.000,000 pounds; for the same period of 193‘7 it was 118,000,000 pounds. It is" estimated that by the end of this year Japanese factories will be equipped to turn out more than 2.000. a day. One may doubt whether they will do so, in view of the military situation and of the fact that practically all the raw material has to be imported. An effort is being made, however, to escape reliance on foreign wood-pulp by adapting the Italian lanilal technique to Manchurian bean cake. A Japanese company was negotiating in 1936 for purchase of the Italian patent, but the price asked was too high Since then the Japanese have been studying the patented processes, and they claim that the vegetable albumen in bean cake, treated chemically, will give as good results as the Italians are getting from casein. This bean cake is the residue left after oil has been extracted from soya beans. The manufacturing company hopes to be producing five tons a day of bean-base staple fibre by April of this year. ,nd shortly afterwards to be able to increase the output to 50 tons a day Moreover, it is claimed that the cost of production will be only 40 sen a prund, as against 60 sen for woodbase staple fibre. 80 sen for rayon three yen (300 sen) for wool, and five yen and a-half for real silk Provisionally the product is being called “ silk wool.”

WEAVING. WEAR AND WARMTH Cloths of wool and staple fibre mixture are being made in Germany with the wool content as low as 20 per cent., but it is too .arly to say that these are giving good results Fifty-fifty mixtures are the usual thing, and are so good in appearance and feel that even experts in fhf English wool trade have been deceived by them. The tensile strength of staple fibre threads is equal to that of woollen tl lads, and tests made under a “mechanical wearer,” which subjects fabrics to creasing and rubbing, suggest that mixtures are as durable a- all-wool cloths. The rough-and-tumble of wear however may reveal defects that escape the ‘ mechanical wearer and it seems hkely that all-wool cloths will be warmer than mixtures. Tests of warmth-retain-ing quality are being made at the

London School of Hygiene. At the same time members of the International Wool research Secretariat are applying their own man-in-the-street tests of both warmth and wear. The New Zealand representative, Mr F. S. Arthur, is having a suit made from a German 50-50 cloth, and his colleageus from Australia and South Africa are experimenting in equally practical ways in an endeavour to leam just what the wool-growing countries are up against. Although there may be nothing to choose for durability, it may be that woollen garments will hold their shape better: a point which no mechanical test can determine. Upon the results of laboratory and street experiments now in hand, the future policy of the Research Secretariat and allied organisations will to some extent be based While growers in the dominions should realise that staple fibre is a real commercial competitor and not just a fanciful fruit of self-con-tained economy, there is no immediate cause for alarm. The rate of increase of production of staple fibre in Germany and Japan especially has been striking, but may not be maintained. On the other hand, there is little hope that the present volume of output will diminish. Already the new industry has built up its vested interests and its product has come to stay. Accordingly, although it is not yet, as some people loosely describe it, a “ menace ” to the pastoral industry, it is a permanent competitor, and as such one that ought to be fought with all the legitimate weapons of science in the fields of production, manufacture and commerce. The woolgrowers of New Zealand were none too early in agreeing to the levy legislation; but the work the levy makes possible is being put in hand promptly and gives promise of useful results. A COMPETITOR WITH COTTON There is no general inclination on the part of English woollen .manufacturers to incorporate staple fibre in their fabrics; this notwithstanding that fibre may be used on regular wool-manufacturing machinery Practically all the staple fibre made in England is going into a new class of cloth which competes wjth cotton and which at the same time offers a new use for wool. It is composed of 90 per cent staple fibre and 10 per cent, wool and is a suitable substitute for all-cotton fabrics in women’s dresses. It is too much to hope, however, that staple fibre will be indefinitely excluded from English woollen mills. The English manufacturer is inclined to be conservative in his methods, and he has not been thrown back upon substitutes by import restrictions. But he knows good business when he sees it; if he can do better in either price or turnover—or both —by making wool-fibre mixtures in place of allwool cloths he will do so.

The immediate job of wool interests all over the world is to prove scientifically to manufacturers and wearers that “ Wool is Best.”