Silk Trade

The silk market in the United States saw another important step in standardizing world transactions when the grading of raw silk by mechanical test was developed. The silk experts of the world during the first 10 years of the loth century had been experiment ing with mechanical devices to determine various characteristics of silk, especially the important factors of elasticity, evenness and elongation (tensile strength). Through the influence of the Silk Association of America, the independent efforts of the tech nicians were pooled through the medium of the Raw Silk Classifi cation Committee. In 1929, a world conference was held in New York at which seven countries represented by 56 delegates partic ipated in six weeks of discussions in Japanese and English to de termine upon a standard method of grading raw silk that would be international in meaning and in acceptance. In 1939, a large part of the world's raw silk was bought and sold on the basis of grades determined by results of mechanical tests.

Sizes and Grades.

The size of silk thread is measured by its thickness. The unit of thickness is the "denier." The French denier weighs one-twentieth part of a gram. The basis for raw silk and thrown silk adopted by the permanent committee of the Paris International Congress of 1900 was fixed length and a variable weight of a skein of raw silk. The standard length was 450 metres and the weight, the "denier." The size of the silk desired is expressed as 13/15 deniers. By this is meant that a skein of 45o metres will weigh between 13 and 15 deniers. Silk is reeled as fine as 8/10 deniers and as coarse as 28/30 deniers but the most de manded sizes are 13/15 and 20/22. A silk cocoon has a filament of three deniers in its early stages of unwinding, two and a half deniers in the middle and two deniers at the end, so in order to arrive at a size of 13/15 deniers, it is required to reel a thread of two new, two half-reeled and two nearly finished cocoons. During the reeling, tests are carried out to see that the size is properly maintained. A reel is taken away from the reeler and carried to the testing room, where a winding machine measures off 34o metres from the reeled silk. This silk is put on the balances and if it weighs 14 deniers it is perfect ; if 13 or 15 deniers, it is good; if 12 or 16 deniers, it is passable; but if it weighs 1 1 or 17 deniers it is bad and the reeler has been reeling a thread with less or more than the six cocoons combined. Irregular size will cause un evenness, a major defect in raw silk, especially where used in the manufacture of sheer hosiery where the irregularity in the size shows as a ring or bar in the stocking.

Grades.—In the principal market, the United States, raw silk is graded on the commodity exchange in two groups, one for 13/15 and the other for 20/22 size. The first consists of five grades: A, B, C, D, E; in 20/22 white the grades are AW, BW, CW; and in 20/22 yellow, AY, BY, CY. The three major quali ties determined are evenness, cleanness and neatness with auxiliary tests of degree of size deviation, average size variation, tenacity, elongation and winding. In the general market, grades are re ferred to at the percentage of evenness; for example, quotations on silk are given as 13/15 denier, 78% seriplane (the machine used to determine degree of evenness).

World Importance of Silk.

The world production of raw silk is no more than about 1% of cotton, 3% of wool and 7% of rayon; but between 1925 and 1931 world supplies increased with remarkable rapidity and, after suffering a slight relapse in 1932 and 5933, reached a peak in 1934 which was 45% above the 1925 level. Since that time, coincident with the development of rayon,

silk has steadily lost its position in the textile family. After years of very low prices, silk made its first comeback when in April 1939 Japan endeavoured to stabilize the market with resulting high prices in 1939 that reached 1930 levels. While this stiffening of price had an encouraging effect on the price levels of the principal users of silk, hosiery manufacturers, it had no material influence on the actual consumption of silk. In fact, it probably paves the way for further diversion to rayon on the part of fabric manufac turers. Japan, however, needs the gold that her export of silk brings and the situation generally has a very direct effect on the position of Japan in the world's political arena.

Japanese production in 1938 represented nearly 8o% of the world's output ; China's share which used to be very large, was only 3%, but that is not unexpected in view of the war conditions existing there. It may be that if Japan is able to gain complete i control in China, she may introduce her more efficient methods of silk production that resulted in her own supremacy in world's markets. For many years it has been contended that Chinese silk, in itself, is superior in quality to Japanese but the Chinese have not been as ready or able to adopt the more modern scientific methods of production that mean production of silk of the desired standards of grades and at a price that is competitive with Japa nese silk. Recently, however, other sources of supply have shown an increase. Italy, for example, produced about 8% of the world's supply in 1938. Persia and Central Asia show an increase of nearly 50% in their production during the period 5935-39. The Levant also showed increased production in those years.

According to the Silk Journal and Rayon World, Manchester, England, the world production of silk is as follows: World Consumption of Raw Silk.—The statistics of con sumption of raw silk by industrial countries may, in the absence of adequate manufacturing data for the industrial countries of the world, be taken as indicating the world's output of finished silk goods. Omitting China, for which data are not available, the principal world consumers of silk are the U.S.A. 53%, Japan 23% and the rest of the world The trend of consumption has been downward since 1929, coin cident with the growth of rayon. As if to meet this decreased demand, natural causes have decreased the silk yield in the pro ducing countries. Adverse weather and war conditions have re duced already smaller incubations of silkworm eggs to a still lower point in Japan. Rain, frost and disease brought down Italian pro duction in 1938 and 1939. China is an uncertain source because of internal conditions. These forces indicate a continuation of the downward trend but steadily rising prices in 5939 may also indi cate a tendency for silk to become once again not the fibre for everyday use, but the fibre of luxury that identified it for so many centuries. Only a year-by-year analysis, in the future, will give the answer. (I. L. BO