WOOL IN THE EAST

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 108, 8 May 1936, Page 3

WOOL IN THE EAST

JAPANESE SUBSTITUTES INCREASED CONSUMPTION The opinion that although a smal quantity of line wool could be produce* in Manchuria and Korea at consider able cost, it was impossible to visualis any major competition for Australia, wool arising in that area, was voices bv Dr. Clunies Ross, director of th McMaster animal health laboratory a the University of Sydney, who recentl; returned from a visit to Japan, Man churia and Mongolia. He also ex pressed the hope that the advertisin of the uses of wool would be considere’ in the Far East as well as in othe markets. In any case, added iDr. Ross, in creased wool consumption in Japan anChina would more than compensate fo any increased production. A more seri ous throat was offered by the develop ment of woollen substitutes in Japan

while the low purchasing power and ignorance of the uses of wool hindered the development of Chinese demand. After talking with army men and liberal and conservative Japanese, he 1 was convinced that the question of Japane.se expansion in Australia was not even considered. There was, ami need be. no hindrance to the deve’opment of harmonious trade and diplo11 matic relations between the two conn d tries. r- Referring to a visit to inner Monit? golia to see the descendants of Merino n sheep imported from Australia by the d Governor of Shansi Province, Dr. Ross ie said that those sheep, which had been I it found incapable of .surviving on the y high Mongolian plateau, had been i- 1 crossed with native sheep, and reflected | <- all the difficulties of preserving wool j g type in such hybrid stock without the | id closest supervis : on. In Suiyuan pre?r vince in spite of famine, civil war and banditry, the competing influence of ii- Chinese agriculture had driven back d the pastoral Mongols to the higher, ir poorer country. i- He pointed out that during recent n- years increasing attention was being n, devoted mainly to the wool-producing

possibilities of Japanese-controlled ter ritories in Korea. Manchukuo, and in ner Mongolia, and also tn the genera, development of the sheep and wool in dustrv in Eastern Asia. Geographically the principal sheep areas constituted n single unit extending from Tibet, in the far west, to Manchuria, in the east, the probable sheep population being about 30/100,000, equivalent, however, on the basis of weight of fleeces, to only 10,000,000 Australian Merinos.