RESTRICTION POLICY

Southland Times, Issue 23199, 14 May 1937, Page 12

RESTRICTION POLICY

GERMANY AND WOOL THE TEXTILE INDUSTRY LONDON, April 7. An interesting insight into Germany’s wool policy, and the effect of the restriction of imports upon the textile industry, is provided by the latest authoritative information from Germany. Over comparative periods, of the past three years, 1934-36, wool imports into Germany have declined by about one-third, and it is no longer permissable to produce pure wool tissues in that country, some form of non-wool admixture being obligatory. Import quotas have been reduced, and more textile raw materials brought within the quotas, but, even so, available supplies are usually inadequate to cover quota allocations. The result is that any raw material which can be picked up is taken regardless" of suitability or quality, and reputations built up on specialization have consequently been sacrificed. One tendency has been to change over to finest possible yarns and tissues, so that from a given weight of raw material relatively greater activity and sales could be maintained.

The utilization of unregulated textile materials—that is, those which do not have to be imported—has developed on an extensive scale. Angora goat hair from Turkey is used as a 40 per cent, admixture with sheep’s wool—especially for hoisery purposes—German imports of Angora hair having increased about 10 times the volume in 1933. Recovered wool from rags is, of course, in great demand in woollen spinning and weaving, and German experts visualize a possible maximum supply of this material from internal sources of 60,000 metric tons—equal to 40 per cent of Germany’s normal wool consumption—but it is doubtful if the intensive organization of domestic rag supplies has yet yielded such a total. The fact that British exports of woollen rags have increased by more than 50 per cent, since 1933 is possibly not without significance in this connection, though the trade returns do not indicate destinations.

The manner in which the German wool textile industry has adapted itself to necessities is perhaps best exemplified in the great use made in recent times of staple fibre, which can be produced in vast quantities from resources within the country and which now enters into almost every department of textile manufacture. Whether as an independent raw material or as a mixture with rayon, wool, and cotton, it is in extensive use, and there is authoritative information that it is employed as a 16 per cent, admixture with cotton yarn, while 30 per cent, admixtures with worsted yam are common, and it is employed in varying proportions with woollen yam. The present annual capacity of Germany’s staple fibre mills is estimated at 70,000 metric tons, but it appears that present demand for the material . to cover current stipulated proportions of admixture amounts to 80,000 tons, to which must be added a considerable demand for pure staple fibre yarn. It is gathered that arrangements to augment national productive capacity by a further 20,000 to 25,000 tons are in hand. . A striking comparison is prompted

by these remarkable figures. In contrast with Germany’s apparent annual need of at least 80,000 tons of staple fibre, excluding pure staple fibre yarn, it is interesting to find that according to the Census of Production for 1935 the woollen and worsted trades in Britain used during that year only 343,0001 b of staple fibre yarn and, if addition is made 111,0001 b of staple fibre and 2,300,0001 b of artificial silk yam (continuous filament), Britain’s total use of these three alternative materials amounted only to some 1240 tons. . On the other hand, British use of virgin wool, home-grown and imported, was something like 236,000 tons. Germany’s raw material question would command the greater practical sympathy of the business world if she herself sought its solution as an economic rather than a political problem. At present she seems to be using her raw material needs as an argument in favour of the return of former colonies, though available statistics do not show that she would be much better off for raw materials if this wish were gratified. She would certainly be little, if any, better off for wool.