THE BRITISH WOOLLEN INDUSTRY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2242, 18 February 1897, Page 4

THE BRITISH WOOLLEN INDUSTRY.

In an article on the importance of the British woollen industry in the Textile Mercury figures are given showing that among the textile trades of Great Britain wool is second only to cotton, and at present, when the comparative value of the two materials is taken into account, the price and cost of the wool, home and foreign, used is about £26,000,000 against £30,500,000 paid for cotton, chiefly in the latter instance to foreign States, so that its position as a national industry takes higher rank. The cobton manufacture employs 528,000 hands in factories, while wool employs 301,000, but it must be borne in mind that, besides the hands employed within the woollen factories, there are numbers of wool sorters, comber?, hand-loom weavers, finishers, dyers. &c, employed out of the factories, and these at a moderate ."sjcuiabion may be reckoned at 50

per cent . or oue woricman employed out for two in. The juurnnl quoted is known to be a sound authority on the subjact ; therefore the pronouncement that woolleu clothing is the favourite among populations should impart confidence to wool-growers, notwithstanding the low price for the raw material prevailing at present. "Wool," the Mercury says, "is so much preferred to any other material for nearly all clothiog purposes that the use of woollen and worsted goods has hitherto been restricted only by the cost, the consumption extending readily iv all countries as the price of wool become« less, and notwithstanding the extraordinary advance in the imports of wool, there has been as yet little accumulation of wool in acock iv the United Kingdom. Working men now wear finer cloth than gentlemen wore half a century back." There is no guide to the present amount of woollen manufactured goods con- , sumed by the well-conditioned Home population of £39,000,000, but some of the most experienced m«rchaut3 estimate ifc at-three-fourths of the whole manufacture. The average yearly exports of all descriptions of woollens i since 1870 may be taken an £26,000,000, but , while the imports and consumpiiou of woollen j manufactures in the last ten years have largely ' increased, the export trade has been greatly checked by hostile tariff* and foreign competition. A characteristic of the wool trade is the great variety iv qualities of wool, comparing the produce of one country with another, or even of different districts of the same country. Each fleece, indeed, contains several sorts adap'ed lor various purposes, bo that there is pernaps no single article of commerce that gives risa to bo many dealings as wool. In regard to colonial (Australian), the value ia price has fallen from £26 10s per bale in 1872 to £11 per bule in 1895. In 1810 Australia sent to England its first clip of wool — 1671b. The exports from Australasia sinca have shown a steady increase. Sixty-fivo years ago the total waa 2.5<U, 0001b. Iv 184-1 it bad increased to 12,399,000 ib, in 1851 to 41,810.0001b, in 1860 to 52,196,0001b, aud in 1895 to 54-1.394-,ooolb. The number of sheop in the Australasian colonies in 1894- was 121,161,000, and the excess value of pxports of wool produced over imports £20,722.000 In Great Britain there are nearly 30,000,000 sheep, in British India 38.000,000, in Canada 2,500,000, and in the Cape and Natal 16,000,000. Thd clip in Great Britain of fkece-vraibed wool in 1895 was 135,000,000ib. iv another leading article, under the heading " The United States and the Bradford Trade : Danger Ahead," the Textile Mercury tabulates separately the United States imports of wool and of wool manufactures from 1892 to I 1896 inclusive. From tbe tables it in seen that | nnd»V the M'Kinley tariff for tlie years 1892-93-94 there were imported 355, 934-, 4-62 1b ot wool, on which the duties collected »mount9d to 18.378,804-dol, while for 1895 and 1896 the importations were 422,027,1161b free of duty. The importations of wool manufactures for 1892-93-94 were valued at 92,375,564d01, on which the duties cjllectid amounted to 89,856, 092d01, while for 1895-96 --he importations amounted to 85,676,534d01, on which therewere collected duties that amounted to 43,819 648d01. Commenting on these figures, a New York journal asks :— " Is there any other argument wanted in favour of the speedy enactment of the Dingley Bill as a temporary revenue measure ? " The Mercury, acting on the advice of special correspondents in the United States, commends the view thus expressed by the New York journal to the notice of those who fondly hop ; that an increase in the American tariff is highly improbable. "It is evident," the Mercury say*, "from the reports to hand from the West, that a strenuous effort will be made to procure a levelling upwords in the duties. Some base their claims for attention on the depleted state of the I National Treasury ; others openly avow that { protection, -with revenue as an incidental inducement, is what they are ia favour of." Unquestionably these dual considerations influence a powerful section of United Scatei politicians, and until the tariff regulations are definitely arranged by Congress there must be doubt and unrest in the trade and demand foe all classes of European goods.

Sources of Milk Infection.

In his lecture delivered before the Glasgow Dairymen's Association, noticed in th«se columns a week or two back, Mr J. R. Campbell, as consulting bacteriologist to the committee appointed to investigate the cause of and remedy for cheese discolouration, adverted to an address by hitn before the association in 1893. "Oo that occasion," he said, " aa on the present, I took for my subject 'The Eelation of Bactetia to Dairying.' At that time I felt that to lecture on such a subject was somewhat of a dangerous experiment, inasmuch as the subject was to many of you a uew'one. Though courtesy prevented you from saying so, I have no doubt that in the minds of some bacteriology was at that time comidered a subject more fitted for the faddist than for the. serion« consideration of the practical dairyman " Since hs first addressed them on the subject its importance hag been appreciated, for he now meets everywhere in the west of Scotland dairymen and. dairy farmers who talk not oniy seriously but most intelligently of bacteria and their action on milk. What at first sounded new and strange to them has become familiar and commonplace, and so it is now widely and well understood that chere are micro-organisms whos". influences on milk depreciate the cheese and butter products, despite the endeavours of skilled makers. He pointed out that these organiams are not in that part of the cow's milk vesiel where the milk i» made, because under suitable conditions the milk may ba taken from the cjw and it will remain perfectly sweet so long as no organisms gain entrauce from outside. The bacteria in milk which caused ifc to ahsnge must

therefore gain an entrance daring and after the milking process. As a matter of fact; bsoterrxare supplied to the milk from one of the following sources : a .\ •1) »The milk in the teat. . .>r " ■ 2. The skin of the cow. 3. The dirt on the teats. 4. The dirt ou the hands of the milker. 5. The air. 6. Tho pails and dishes. In regard to the infection of milk in the teat, ib is a very old experience that the first milk drawn from each teat ia much better milked on the grass than allowed to go into the milk pail. By creeling the first drawn milk buttermake.rs and cheese makers found that their produce was improved in consequence. The first milk has been examined and analysed, and found to bs specially rich in b&cterU, which have gained entrance through the teat from the soil or litter on which tho cow has rested. In the nexb place, the akin of all animals is well supplied with bacteria, usually of a very, special kind, and in addition to these tho skin of the adder will always have attached to it muoh loose dirt that may fall into the pail. But the number, of bacteria supplied to the milk from this source is insignificant compared with the quantities supplied from the next two sources — namely, the teat* of the cow and the hands of the milker. No one milks with dry hands, but they need not be wet ; they must be moist, however, and so must the teats. Now both hands and teats aro well supplied with bacteria. In tbe case of the bands this is specially so, for are they not collecting bacteria from every substance with which they come in contact. If the hands re* mained merely damp less h&rai could come to the milk on their account, but an a matter of fact, owing to tbe toughness of the teat, or its small size, the hands during the milking operation become more than nioisG — thay often become so wet that exudations from them and from the teats are swept into the milk paH by the excess of moisture. This ia,by fan the most fruitful source of the bacteria that pollute miik, taint it, or turn it sour. The number and variety of bacteria in milk, and consequently the tendency of milk to sour and taint, would be enormously diminished if each milker was to wash the hands frequently and rub them dry with a clean white towel. Again, the number of bacteria supplied by the air of a byre or of a milk house is 'certainly large, but this if not so fruitful a source ao those above-mentioned. If the floors be damp and dust be cot plentiful, the nurcbor of bacteria, in the air is nob so very great, for bacteria are 7iot given off into the air by moist surfaces. As to the bacteria supplied by the pails and dishes, they are more to ' be : dreaded for their obnoxious character than their numbers. It is very surprising how the smell of a dirty, ill- washed, and badly-scalded dish can | be propagated and carried through even into ripe cheese. Tho lecturer impressed upon his | audience the facts that bacteria are necessary to the ripening process in milk, but when »uch as have been described above nave access to ifc it ir nob in the least surprising that butters of every shade of quality are made or that the merchant has not adjectives enough in his vocabulary to describe the various flavours he finds in cheese. Some bad flavours in butter, if not every one of them, are produced by the bacteria in the milk ; and the dirtier the milk and tho filthier the dishes the more varied will be the kinds of bacteria that gain an entrance.

A Trade Review.

Messrs Weddel and Co. have issued their usual annual review of the trade in which they are iuteretted, and they give a large amount of valuable information. They say :—": — " la the course of 15 years an entirely new trade has grown up of sufficient magnitude to absorb 5,500,000 frozen sheep and lambs annually. Consumers in the United Kingdom now rely upon this new trade to furnish close on one-third of their mutton and lamb requirements, and yet the volume of gales of Homegrown mutton in the interval has nob been appreciably affected. In 1886 the total flocks iv the United Kingdom numbered close on 29,000,000, of which the proportion slaughtered represented a supply for that year of 310,000 tons of mutton and lamb ; whereas in 1893 the flocks totalled 30,853,809, representing a food supply of 329,000 tons. This new trade, therefore, ha* nob been built up by driving the British farmer out of the market ; nor, if the average price of first and second quality Engliih sheep sold at the Metropolitan Cattle Market in 1895 (the latest available official return)— viz , 5s 4d to 5s lid per sbone of 81b, sinking the offal — be compared with that recorded for 1885— viz., 53 2d to 5s 8d per lb— can it be said that the frozen meat trade has bsen established at the expanse of Home producers." A supplementary map of London issued with the review shows the position of the frozen meat stores and markets. There are 16 such stores having a combined capacity of 1,089,000 carcases of 561b each. ' ' In addition there are stores at the following ports— viz., at Liverpool, fire with a total capacity of 325 000 sheep ; at Manchester, one wita space for 120.000 sheep ; at Cardiff, one with apace for 75,000 ; at Glasgow, one for 60,000; at Newcastle, one for 25,000; and at Bristol, one for 2*,000 carcasss. There are, besides these, several small stores in midland towns, and others are gradually being added. There has been comparatively little difficulty with regard to storage space during the past year, nor is this to be wondered at in view of the facb that the refrigerated space in London stores alone is equal to the ctoriug of 12 weeks' arrivals, which ought to b3 quite sufficient for the present requirements of the trade."