WOOL BUYERS’ COMPLAINT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23829, 8 June 1939, Page 9

WOOL BUYERS’ COMPLAINT

USE OF HEAVY PAINT BRANDS (From Our Own Correspondent) LONDON, May 4. Complaints about paint marks in wool have been made to Mr F. S. Arthur, New Zealand representative on the International Wool Secretariat, by Bradford topmakers and spinners. “It is a perennial complaint among wool buyers,” Mr Arthur said on his return to London from a visit to the Midlands. “It is not directed only at New Zealand. I was presented with samples of two lines of Wanganui wools bought this year by a well-known topmaker. They were plastered with red branding paint which had solidified into a hard mass on the fleece.

“Practically every fleece In these two lines was affected, and a substantial handful from each had to

be removed by the sorters before the remainder could be used for manufacturing. I was told that the mass of branded wool removed was worth not more than a penny a pound, which, of course, represents a substantial loss in a big consignment.”

Mr Arthur added that in South Africa woolgrowers are required by law to clip all brands from fleeces before they are offered for sale. It was a somewhat drastic regulation, but it saved the buyer a great deal of additional expense which could be avoided by a reputable brand of paint being used and care being taken in the application of the brand.

“A pack of fleeces, with a great mass of red sediment, such as that shown me, is not a good advertisement for New Zealand wool,” said Mr Arthur. “It should certainly receive the careful attention of every grower concerned with efficient preparation and the successful marketing of his cliiv”