CARPET MAKING

Taranaki Daily News, 27 November 1934, Page 12

CARPET MAKING

VISIT OF ENGLISH EXPERT.

, DOMINION WOOLS UNSUITABLE.

Mr. J. Brown, of the well-known firm of James Templeton and Company, carpet manufacturers, of Glasgow, was an arrival at Wellington by the Rangitane from London. He is on a business visit to New Zealand and may go on later to Australia.

Mr. Brown said trade as far as his firm was concerned was moving upward, although tariffs, exchanges, embargoes and quotas were not helpful. In recent months his firm’s business with the Dominion had improved considerably, but the export trade generally was very difficult.

The fact that New Zealand-grown wool was unsuitable for carpet manufacture was mentioned by Mr. Brown, who explained that it was too soft and slippery. What Templeton's needed was a hard wool that did not fray away. Consequently the firm drew its requirements from East India, where the hard climate produced harder wool that would stand up to the wear and tear to which carpets were, of course, subject. Mr. Brown said James Templeton and Company was probably the largest partnership concern in Great Britain. It would celebrate its centenary in about six years’ time.