IMPORTANT VISITS BY DELEGATES TO WOOL SECRETARIAT

Wanganui Chronicle, 10 June 1948, Page 5

IMPORTANT VISITS BY DELEGATES TO WOOL SECRETARIAT

Recd. 6 p.m. London, June 9. Visitors to Galashiels (Scotland) and Leeds were paid by Mr. Jameson, chairman of the New Zealand Wool Board, Mr. ,W Horrobin, deputy chairman, and Mr. R. G. Lund, New Zealand representative on the International Wool Secretariat, during an interval in the talks begun recently by the Secretariat’s executive committee. At Galashiels, a centie of the tweed industry, they met manufacturers who use big supplies of New Zealand wool. A visit was paid to the Scottish woollen technical college, directed by Dr. J. G. Martindale, which asked the support of the Secretariat for a £50,000 research training project. A novel method of converting wool on hide to a soft, silky, imitation of fur was seen at a Galashiels fellmongery. In Leeds the New Zealanders visited the university, where they talked with Professor J. B. Speakman, director of the Textiles Industry Department and the Wool Industries Research Association, at Torridon, where they met Mr. B. H. Wilsdon, the director, Both the department and the association have received financial support from the Secretariat since its formation, in 1938. Annual grants of £lO,OOO sterling are made to each. In the case of the university it chiefly takes the form of fellowships, one of which is held by R. V. Peryman, formerly of Dunedin, of the New Zealand Woollen Mills Research Association. He is conducting research into the use of oils for lubricating wool fibres during manufactuie. While at the University the visitors saw the progress made with the new

£20,000 research building. This sum was given by the British Clothwork- ’ ers’ Guild. The secretariat has al- ■ ready allotted £lO,OOO towards equipping the building and it is believed that it may provide a further similar sum. Two post-graduate scholarships, worth £5OO for two years, are to be awarded by the New Zealand Wool Board to New Zealanders, and Mr. Jameson and Mr. Horrobin arranged ’ with Professor Speakman that these 1 scholarships shall be tenable at the textile industry department of the ' Leeds University if the students wish ’ to study there. At Torridon interesting experiments to make New Zealand crossbreds more ‘ attractive as apparel garments were : seen. It is hoped they will result in ’ a closer and more uniform finish and a much softer "handle.” En route to England Messrs. Jame--1 son and Horrobin visited the United States, but felt that their stay was ■ too brief to satisfy themselves on some ■ of the problems confronting the ) American wool industry. “We sensed a general desire for a greater measure of co-operation and ■ apprecition of the need for a general - improvement of our product by a still s more vigorous campaign of research, f both in the field and laboratory,” . they said. r “While the slogan ‘there is no subr stitute for wool’ is basically true, the • world market requires that wool 1 should adapt itself with the consumer . demand. To overcome shortages of ( certain types of wool, to which people ■ have become accustomed, it is increasingly evident that the virtues of 5 our product must be developed as far i as, and as rapidly as possible."