"SAFEGUARDING" POLICY.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 250, 22 October 1928, Page 4

"SAFEGUARDING" POLICY.

LACE INDUSTRY BENEFITS.

An important issue in the approaching Parliamentary elections in Great Britain will be the attitude adopted towards the policy of safeguarding specified industries. In this connection Sir Ernest Jardine, chairman of Messrs. Thomas Adams, Ltd., the Nottingham lace manufacturers, was responsible for some outspoken statements at the annual meeting of the company. He frankly attributed the improvement of the financial status of the firm during the last 12 months mainly to the effect of safeguarding duties. He said that "the bank overdraft of £31,744 had not only entirely disappeared, but the bank balance and cash had increased to £7221, while a loss of £10.000 last year had been turned into a profit. After the shareholders had gone without dividends for the last eight years the lace industry had secured the benefit of safeguarding. But for that assistance there would have been little, if any, lace trade left in the country. The imposition of the duties had the immediate effect of infusing new life and hope into the trade;, this confidence bad led to the placing of new ranges of goods on the market, and no country in the world could now show a finer collection of laces than ours." "So much for the benefits of safeguarding," comments the "Times," "but can anyone tell us who in this countryis one penny worse off as a result of iis application to lace making?"