THE WOOL INDUSTRY

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 75, Issue 6441, 3 November 1947, Page 3

THE WOOL INDUSTRY

TRADE WITH SCANDINAVIA POSSIBILITIES DISCUSSED Mr Reginald G. Lund, New Zealand representative on the International Wool Secretariat, returned to Great Britain»recently from a tour of countries in Scandinavia to consider the possibility of extending the activities of the secretariat. Mr Lund went first to Denmark, then, to Norway, Sweden and Finland. Interviewed on his return, Mr Lund said that the countries he visited have a total population of about 17,500,000. The standard of living before the war was very high, and in Sweden the standard was still high to-day. All the four counrtiei, he said, have some domestic wool production, but in Sweden and Denmark this was quite small. Norway’s sheep numbered one and three-quarter million, and Finland about one million, which in both eases produced wool of a coarse to medium crossbred. “For the size of these countries,” said Mr Lund, “they have been heavy importers of wool, tops, yarns and piece-goods. In 1945-46 they bought 53,000,000 pounds of greasy raw wool from the Dominions alone. None of these countries, however, has sufficient spinning capacity to enable it to supply any large part of its requirements from raw wool, and they are all of them looking anxiously to Britain for greater supplies of tops and yarns. Norway, Denmark, and Sweden have all been cut off during the war from the newest technical developments in wool processing, and there is a great demand in these countries for information about new processing and finishes for shrinkproofing moth-proofing, and increasing the softness and durability of fabrics. The secretariat is planning to send to Scandinavia a technical exhibition which will illustrate all these processes. “On the other hand, the wool industry in Sweden is highly advanced in a technical sense, and the greatest scope for our activities there seems to be in bringing to the notice of the public the special qualities of wool clothing. In Sweden, alone among the four countries, clothes rationing has been abolished, and goods seem freely available. The Swedish mills are modern and very progressive, and the manufacturers seem anxious to use greater proportions of virgin wool in their products than they used before the war.”

Mr Lund concluded by saying that the main impression of his trip had been of the tremendous demand for high quality wool clothing, which had arisen -as a reaction to the sacrifices of war.