WOOL SUBSTITUTES

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19824, 29 December 1938, Page 13

WOOL SUBSTITUTES

MENACE TO INDUSTRY . SIIEEPG ROWER'S FEARS Grave concern at the prospect of New Zealand becoming a dumping ground for cheap substitutes fox’ wool was expressed by Major P. Mackenzie, of Walter Peak station, Queenstown, in an interview m Dunedin. The view that the wool trade was threatened with extinction unless the Government and the people in general, particularly woolgrowers, took practical steps to nip this menace in the bud, was expressed by Major Mackenzie. “Tho Government needs to tackle this problem,” he continued. “It has made mistakes in the past, but they have been honest ones. The Government can squash the danger before it i gets a grip on the country. To a certain extent the matter could be accomplished by the Government refusing to grant a license for the importation of woollen fabrics containing anything but pure wool, with the exception perhaps of a small percentage of artificial fabric.

“As Great Britain is so largely interested in wool manufacturing she will be severely affected by the use of artificial wool, which is being manufactured in ever-increasing quantities by cheap foreign labour. Our importers are greatly to blame I for using our London funds, which the woolgrowers have largely helped to create, for bringing in wool substitutes to destroy the very trade by which these reserves have been created. Eventually the wool cheque of the Dominion will be down by millions of pounds because of the use of wool substitutes, and this will affect in some way or other, though perhaps indirectly, every inhabitant of New Zealand,