THE OUTLOOK FOR WOOL.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 February 1930, Page 8

THE OUTLOOK FOR WOOL.

With the decline in prices for wool there has arisen a host of suggestions for remedying the defects in that most important export industry. -Apart from the question of wool-growing, one that even the most ardent of would-be reformers admits must be left to the specially-trained, the methods of improvement that have been urged appear to fall into three classes. The first is that the grading of wool for sale could be made more attractive to buyers, and that if certain grades were more or less standardised purchasers would find buying less speculative than it is at present. The second suggestion is that the marketing system needs overhauling with a view to preventing undue gluts in the market or to stabilising prices. ' The third is that .wool growers and manufacturers of woollen goods should join in a comprehensive effort to increase the use of woollen articles. It is the last suggestion that seems most promising. It is one in which all parts of the industry "can share without the interests of any sections coming into conflict. Of the value of woollen clothing there is no doubt. For health and comfort no other material has the same good characteristics. Yet other materials by attractiveness and by tho study of consumers’ demands in other’ directions have succeeded in diverting a good deal of the trade that manufacturers of woollen goods at one time anticipated almost as a right. It is no longer sufficient to know that the goods one has for disposal are of the best quality. With quality must come designs that appeal and, above all, the public must be kept continuously advised, of where the best value for its money lies. That is a phase of the woollen-industry that appears

to have been neglected, while its competitors have exploited it to the full. A campaign of well-thought-out and thoroughly organised publicity is as likely to be successful in resuscitating the woollen industry as it has proved in regard to other trades and manufacturers.