OUR YORKSHIRE LETTER.

Otago Witness, Issue 3034, 8 May 1912, Page 19

OUR YORKSHIRE LETTER.

(From Oub Special Correspondent.) BRADFORD, March 22. i TURNING FLEECES TO THE BEST \ POSSIBLE ACCOUNT. When one comes to look carefully over a fleeoe, and to allocate it 3 different qualities to the best possible purposes, one cannot but be impressed by tho large number of different avenues into which the raw material is going. . This week I have had placed in my hands a sample of the finest top produced in Bradford. The firm making it has a reputation to lose, and I must admit that it would be at least 100's quality. I am not going to dilate upon this combed article, but it is geting scarcer and scarcer, and what the firm in question will do when it can no longer produce this superior top I cannot say. Of course, their sorters havo to pick out a handful here and there when an extra fine fleece comes on to the board, for 80*s to 100's quality wool is only grown to-day in a few instances, and is nothing le3s than a specialty. As I havo repeatedly said, changed manufacturing conditions demand to-day a big production of medium quality wool—say 64 s to 70's; and when we got to tho higher counts only certain flocks from certain districts in Australia will give them. Somebody said the other day that if manufacturers desire these specialties, they should bo prepared to pay special prices; and in somo cases they do.? Mv own view is that I cannot see much chance of any lower values being paid for the superfine wools, for the quantity is bound to. get less and loss as time goes on. Therefore for those who will stick to breeding and rearing those superfine merinos, I certainly think that good-paying prices will be forthcoming. Let the reader bear in mind that these remarks do not apply to wools of 70'a quality, but refer more directly to such fleeces as are from 60's to 100's. Certain fabrics will always be produced whore price does not enter into the question at all, it being the article that is wanted, legardless of the cost of the raw material from which it is made. SCOURED VERSUS GREASY WOOLS. It is a well-known fact that when the -lapanose entered the Sydney market as buyers of wool they showed special preference for scoured descriptions, and confined their operations exclusively to that class of raw material. While the demand lasted Sydney scourers of skin and fleece wools benefited considerably, but to-day thoy never touch a single bale. Why? Simply because the Japanese manufacturers havo iearnt that it does not take scoured wool worth 24d per lb to make army and other average lines of woollen and worsted fabrics. There is a very important point in this statement, which applies directly iKith to the grower and the manufacturer. Some tremendous weights of raw material are used in clothing tho armies of tho world, particularly those of Great Britain, France, Germany, and tho United States. Tho reason for this is that the various Governments insist upon turning out their officers and men in'tne best woollen fabrics that can possibly bo produced. But let us go back to the statement that Japanese buyers are no longer purchasing scoureds. but greasy wool. This is but a natural evolution of things in the woollen and worsted industries. Evidently Japanese mill-owners havo installed new scouring machines, which are absolutely oc pntial in every woollen factory in the world. They have also sent their sons to the Leeds and Bradford Technical Schools, to spend two to four years in going through every department. Consequently the young men have gone homo well qualified to ceo wool through every stage of manufacture. They know as well e.s any Yorkshire mill-owner that no manufacturing plant car l» complete which is not ablo to take wool as it comes from the sheep't back, sort and scour it, and then turn it out as cloth ready for - the wearer. That is really the

sum and substance of the development of the .Japanese woollen and worsted industry, and when the Chinese begin to manufacture their own textile fabrics they too will require the same machines.