GERMANY WANTS WOOL.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 13645, 27 March 1915, Page 9

GERMANY WANTS WOOL.

CO LL E LTJiN' G EVERY SHR ED

'.'SORT OF GLORIFIED FUN.'

By making wool absolute contraband Britain has struck a severe economic blow at Germany. The people of Germany, says a Rotterdam correspondent of the Daily Express, are collecting every rag that contains wool with a care and completeness truly Teutonic. # For the sake of euphony >< rlin is calling it a wool week. Under this guise every rag, every old suit, curtain, carpet, flannel petticoat, and even discarded upholstery, has been raked into depots, there to undergo rejuvenation into clothing and warm comforts for the troops.

The old suits that formerly graced tho Wilhelmstrasse and Unter den Linden aro being brushed and patched and mado into clothing for the troops. Old trousers are being shortened, and jackets mado sleeveless, for wear under the uniforms of tho soldiers. Coats become vests, and old trousers pants, till some of the men when m full rig will resemble a tramp turn on an English music hall. Patchwork blankets or quilts ar© being made out of Gretchen's left-off petticoats, and the odd pieces, such as clippings, are being shredded for remanufacture into "new" clothes. Thousands of women and children have been put on the work of collecting and sorting j depots have been opened m all the big towns, and. large numbers of patriotic women are busily re-making tho old garments into new. The only complaint Ls that the people are giving too freely, and the workers aro m danger of being overwhelmed by a perfect avalanche of old clothes. In one depot alono 160 "new" garments are turned out daily, and the workers cannot keep pace with the arriving lumber. The Magistrates' College set the oxample by sending m 380 old curtains; while m order to conserve existing stocks of new wool, the employees oil -tlie State railways have been informed that they will have to make their uniforms last longer than the regulation period. Their other articles of clothing nvtde partly fuom wool will be mside of "cotton velvet."

Some of the people are, inclined to look upon this as a sort of glorified fun. But there is much behind- it. Germany since its development into an indn<Hv ; a] country allowed its own production of wool m 1912 to be reduced roughly to one-sixth of- what it was m 1860. Thus practically, her whole supply is imported.

It is almost certain that whilst Germany was collecting huge stocks of other goods m secret preparation for the war, wool also received 'due attention. Thus there seems to be no immediate dearth of wool. It is all the more interesting, therefore,, j 0 observe the efforts of this thoroughly well-drilled nation throwing every effort into utilising every available shred of old material m order to conserve stocks that may not lust for the long period which even Germany now fear's the war will be waged.