OUR YORKSHIRE LETTER.

Otago Witness, Issue 3672, 29 July 1924, Page 17

OUR YORKSHIRE LETTER.

BRADFORD AND CONTINENTAL TYPES OF RAW MATERIAL. (From Our Special Correspondent.) . BRADFORD, June 4. The presence in Bradford this week of an important textile deputation, from Roubaix directs attention to the class of business founded and developed in Northern I‘ranee, Roubaix and Tourcoing being the chief centres of the industry. This part of 1 ranee is frequently called the “Bradford of France,’’ the trade done at the British and French centres being very similar. E’or instance, both Bradford anil Roubaix are big buyers of merino and crossbred colonial wool, and both centres alike are largely employed in combing, spinning, and manufacturing that wool into good, wearable fabrics. Then another interesting fact is that both Bradford and Roubaix have become well-known as manufacturing centres for ladies’ dress goods. At one time Bradford dyers and finishers were a long way behind French dyers and finishers in manipulating the light, flimsy fabrics usually worn by the gentler sex, and we have heard old manufacturers bemoan the fact that they found themselves completely beaten in the method of manipulation of certain classes of dress goods, which at the time captured the markets of the world. We believe we are right in asserting that the well-known cashmeres, which had such a great vogue some 30 to 40 years ago, originated in Roubaix, the fine mule-spun yarns and the cream colour in which they -were largely made and worn being first made at that centre. For some years they held vogue, and were the most fashionable fabrics worn. Since that time other equally attractive cloths have originated in Northern France, and at last gaberdines, which have been so popular since the end of tile war, have been largely made in both Bradford and France. These cloths were largely produced in the first instance in Bradford; but owing to certain conditions, largely the outcome of exchange factors, they have been largely made during the past 12 months in France, to the disadvantage of the sale of the same class of goods made in the West Riding. The deputation of French wool and textile people in Bradford this week is all the more welcome because certain important interests and subjects are being discussed in the hope that good to both sections of the trade will eventuate. FRENCH SPECIALITIES. The reader will have already gleaned that French manufacturers have specialised in the production of certain fabrics, and are likely to continue to do so iji the future. No expression is more frequently used among those whose special business is to attend the London sales and to buy the wool there offered than “Continental wools,” and the fact that it is in such common use is due to the necessity which has arisen for distinctive terms. The qualities and descriptions of raw material now produced in various parts of the w’orld are almost legion and manufacturers’ requirements are also so diverse that it is necessary to have at least some broad means of differentiation to serve as a guide to both buyers and sellers. Perhaps it will be as well to explain at the outset that the phrase is applied to a particular type of colonial wool which is suitable for manipulation on the machinery used on the Continent. These French specialities are to a large extent the product of Continental style wools, and the particular method of treating merinos has enabled French spinners and manufacturers to produce the specialities for which they have become famous. It is somewhat significant that this term “Continental wools” should be applied to merinos only, but such is the case. We have never hoard the term used in connection with colonial crossbred wools. It is really applicable to wools of somewhat short staple and of fine quality. For instance, Bradford topmakers and spinners require wool that will make u good length top, hence “warp” merinos aro more sought, after than the shorter wools. Continental style wools are almost entirely combed on the Sclilumberger machine, which is specially adapted for short-stapled merinos, whereas the bulk of the wools used in Bradford are put through the Noble comb, which is specially suited for the handling of warp-length merinos. In other words, French spinners and manufacturers can manipulate shorter stapled wools better than can those in the

home trade. West Riding firms could manipulate these wools if they had the same class of machinery as is found in French mills; in other words, short tops (which, of course, come from short wool) can only be spun into yarn on the mule principle, while longer wool must be spun on cap or fly spindles. A good deal of the shorter stapled New South Wales and Queensland wools, the latter in particular, find their way to Northern France, simply because there is usually a good 70’s quality, combined with a staple of no more than medium length, if anything on the short side. It is from these wools and by special treatment that French spinners and manufacturers produce very sightly and usually soft-handling and full fabrics. Perhaps French spinners and manufacturers have exercised more patience and persevered more in technical detail than West Riding spinners and manufacturers, which accounts for their present standard of perfection. There is no doubt, as experience has proved over and over again, that different types of wool behave very differently during manipulation. For instance, if a bale of wool is taken and split in two, one half being treated on the Schlumberger comb and mule spun, and the other half treated on the Noble comb and cap spun, as in Bradford, the resultant fabrics, though made exactly alike in the loom, would present a very different appearance. Therefore French manufacturers can be said to have exploited to the utmost the shorter and finer merinos grown in Australia, while Bradford firms have done the same with the better-grown merinos from the same source. PROPOSED INTERNATIONAL WOOL FEDERATION. Perhaps one of the most important subjects discussed at the Bradford conference on the first day was the formation of an international wool federation, which, if it can be successfully launched, will certainly tend to the discussion of many subjects of international importance. Increasing attention is being given to wool statistics as the years go by—a fact which is very gratifying to the writer, for he has been emphasising it for the past 25 years. W e Know no trade, except the cotton industry, where statistics are so carefully studied, and by which the various sections of the trad© are helped so much to shape a future policy. During the earlier months of the war the writer furnished the War Office and the leading members of the diffex-ent committees with more w-col statistics than the Government possessed itself in fact, the various departments were hopelessly out, and anyone with any practical knowledge of the trade cannot but express surprise with the remarks of Lieutenantcolonel Vernon Willey regarding the absence of statistics during the slump years of 1919-20. Mr Walter Andrews said m 1918 that the trade was going to be “smothered in wool,” but everybody knows what a fight there was to extract from the wooP section of the Government department any information at all regarding the actual quantity of wool they had on hand or what was in sight. The only direction in which we think an improvement could be made is in individual firms throughout the whole trade being persuaded to give to some central authority the quantity of wool they have in stock, and stating their monthly consumption. Perhaps this would be showing their hand too much to officials; but there is no doubt that the information would be useful. An attempt towards a similar end is made across the Atlantic bv the collecting of monthly figures; but nearlv a dozen of the largest firms, including the American Woollen Company, which"is the biggest consumer of wool in the United States, refuse to furnish the particulars, and nothing but the legalisation of the demand for the information by an Act of Parliament would compel many firms in England to furnish it. We think that in the course of a year or two, when the effect of the British Australian Wool Realisation Association’s accumulations has entirely passed, and we get back to absolutely normal conditions in relation to supply and demand, the wool trade will be able to estimate fairly accurately the real standing of the raw material in the matter of present and prospective supplies.