NO WOOL IN WOOLSACK!

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23517, 3 June 1938, Page 21

NO WOOL IN WOOLSACK!

AUSTRALIAN “ HORRIFIED ” WOOL SECRETARIAT’S WISH (From Our Own Correspondent) (By Air Mail) LONDON, May 11. A point for the publicity campaign of the International Wool Secretariat has beerf made by Sir Dalziel Kelly, chairman of the Australian Wool Board and the Australian Wool Growers’ Council. He has revealed a "terrible thing”—that the Woolsack (the Lord Chancellor’s seat in the House of Lords) has horsehair as stuffing in substitution for wool. Something, he declared, should be done about it! •. With other dominion representatives. Sir Dalziel Kelly is exploring methods of stimulating the sale of dominion wool on the London market. During a visit to the Port of London Authority’s wool warehouses in London docks he was told that imports of sheep and lambs’ wool into London declined from 4,363.187 centals of 1001 b in 1933 to an estimated figure of 3,117.878 centals in 1937. This is partly due to developments in the practice of buying direct from the dominions rather than at the London wool sales, such alternative purchases reaching the manufacturing areas through other ports. - A pamphlet isued by the Port of London Authority states that 857,000 bales were handled in the port in 1937. THE LONDON MARKET Sir Dalziel pointed out that the Australian clip alone had averaged 3,000,000 bales per annum in recent years, and he remarked that London as a wool market had fallen away. Nevertheless, Great Britain remained the greatest wool-manufacturing country of the world, and its importance to the Empire was obvious. “If anything happened to the wool trade or to wool prices—more serious than that which is happening now—it would be a very severe blow to the economic system of the Empire. Australia would certainly be insolvent. Observing that the Empire produced and controlled 75 per cent, of the world’s “ trade wool,” the percentage in respect of fine wool being 80 per cent., Sir Dalziel spoke of the competition of lighter fabrics and especially of artificial fibres, and of the threat involved in the increased production of these artificial fibres in countries which desired to become independent of raw material supplies from outside their borders. It was because Australia realised these dangers that the wool growers initiated, as far back as 1927, the movement for wool research and publicity which was now represented in London by the International Wool Secretariat. Sir Dalziel mentioned that most of the technical research which was contemplated in England under the financial scheme sponsored by the Dominion wool-producing countries would be carried out at Tridon. Leeds. On the subject of the woolsack, he said, “It is the desire of the International Wool Secretariat that this should be stuffed with wool Instead of with horsehair.” Mr S. M. Bruce, Australian High Commisisoner in London, who presided at the luncheon, said that biological research carried out in Australia had doubled the amount of wool obtained per sheep. The publicity and technical research campaign now undertaken should be valuable to industries using wool as a raw material. Mr C. T. Te Water, High Commissioner for the Union of South Africa, observed that the United Kingdom stood fourth to Germany, France, and Japan as a buyer of South African wool. South Africa desired to strengthen her position in the British market, especially as South Africa was to-day the United Kingdom’s best customer.

Owing to his presence in Geneva, the High Commissioner for New Zealand. Mr W. J. Jordan, was unable to be present. He was represented by Mr F. T. Sandford, his official secretary. Mr F. S. Arthur, the New Zealand representative on the secretariat, was also present.