SUBSTITUTE FOR WOOL

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20464, 2 April 1938, Page 15 (Supplement)

SUBSTITUTE FOR WOOL

Germany’s Efforts :: The Four-Year Plan (Professor Roberts in “The House That Hitler Built.”)

THERE ARE thirty-four vital materials without which a nation cannot live, and unfortunately, Germany is worse off than any other great State in so far as these are concerned. Whereas the British Empire is largely dependent on outside sources for nine of these, Germany has only two in ample quantities—potash and coal. That means that she must turn to the foreigner for all of her supplies of twenty-six of these and for part of six more. Yet this is the Power that sees fit to launch a plan for complete self-suffi-ciency. It is ludicrous, unless she looks forward to obtaining control of the vast raw materials of Central Europe or the lands behind the Ukraine by some adventurous foreign policy. ... Yet the mass of Germans are so inflamed by official propaganda that they believe Hitler when he says that Germany Must, and Can, Stand Alone. Germany relies on her chemists. She conquered nitrates, she conquered indigo, she conquered silk, and she holds she can conauer her other deficiencies by the same methods. So far her efforts have been mainly directed towards rubber, wool and petrol. Since 1932 she has been producing Buna, synthetic rubber, in large quantities (although not yet on a paying basis), and Hitler claims that the artificial product is anything up to a third more durable than real rubber. Her fight for wool is an older one and dates back to or.e day in. May, 1921, when the Patents Office affixed its double-eagle jseal on Patent No. 62613, which dealt with seemed the chimerical proposal to convert wood into wool. Production began next year, and the Germans made no secret of their methods. Models of the complicated machinery may be seen in the Deutsches Museum, Munich. Vfstra was a glassy-looking substance that was not much use by itself; but in 1926 the mixture of Vistra and wool in equal quantities produced the substance known as Wollstra, which is to-day the basis of Germany’s efforts to make synthetic textile materials. The production of this was enwidened in 1933, and I was told that important new cloths were to be made after thia year. The great dye combination—the LG.acted practically as a Government agent in controlling this artificial production, and several of their officials told me what progress had been made and what difficulties had been encountered. At first the technical obstacles were many. The new fabrics would not withstand rain. There is the story of a representative of a colonial government who had bought a substitute raincoat and boasted of it at the Foreign Office. The official there sent out an order: “ For goodness sake detail somebody to look after him and at all costs keep him out of the rain! ” The Defect Has Been Largely Overcome. The substitutes can now stand showers, but not heavy soaking rain. A deplorable sight in Germany is to see a row of cheap German hats (made of artificial wool) after rain. . . , ~ The chemists went a certain way and then stopped. Clever as they are they seem to be able to go no farther, and German industry to-day must content itself with producing large quantities of artificial woollen products with all their present defects, unless, as one official said to me, “we stumble on what we want.” It is admittedly easier to spin with Vistra than with real wool,

because of the uniform length of the fibre, but the problem of “scratching” still remains. and the experts have not been able to produce a curling fibre or to secure the necessary flexibility. The artificial cloths have a cold flabby feeling, like flexible glass, and most of them have no warmth. That is why Germans will rather have one suit of “ English cloth” than three of the mixed local material. Every shop in Germany distinguishes between the local textiles and “ English cloth,” which always had the place of honour. It is the mark of good tailoring with the young blood in Nazidom to have an English suit. An official concerned with production ruefully admitted to me that the whole scheme seemed to be breaking down on the Rock of Public Taste. As soon as the people were getting more prosperous with the internal armaments boom, they were wanting imported cloths. The saddest man I met in Germany, was a well-known Munich tailor whose clients were from the wealthy class, but who could not replace his dwindling supplies of West-of-England cloth, however much he was offered. “ I have only a few metres of Irish material for their white vests, and next month they wil have to have dress vests made from wool,” he moaned. In the last couple of years Germany has found that she has to mix an ever-increas-inig proportion of natural wool to produce a good serviceable cloth, and apparently the mixture most favoured at the moment is two-thirds wool and one-third Vistra. For a time it was compulsory to dilute natural wool with a certain proportion of Vistra, but this is no longer the case, although it still applies to cotton goods. It is most significant that Germany has recently beeh considering Vistra as more suitable ’ for mixture with other substances than wool, so far has she given up the fight. The I.G. combine has a great advertising campaign to show the advantages of mixing Vistra with cotton, linen and other materials. One advertisement displayed everywhere shows flax and Vistra walking hand in hand along the road that leads to German salvation. That is, the substitute first devised to mix with wool is now found more useful in conjunction with other materials. “We would solve wool,” I was told, “if wool did not have such peculiar characteristics.” But, as it is, Wollstra Seems No More Successful (as compared with natural wool) than the Lanital which the Italians are making from the casein in milk. In both cases enormous quantities of cloth are being made, and in both cases the public will buy either because of suasion or cheapness; but neither Wollstra nor Lanital can be compared with real wool. That is demonstrated by the fact that, when Germany had a trade quarrel with Australia (her greatest supplier of fine Merino wool) she had to buy Australian wool indirectly through British middlemen, despite the extra charges. Even to-day, when all the emphasis is on the Four Year Plan, and when foreign exchange is so short, Germany is enlarging her purchases of wool. It is one thing for Hitler to say that Germany will be independent of outside supplies in eighteen months, but quite another -when it comes to closing the outside wool markets, so much so that one wonders how far the Four Year Plan has been mooted for purposes of internal propaganda.