DEAR LEATHER.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 15776, 18 December 1916, Page 8

DEAR LEATHER.

PRICE OF BOOTS MAY RISE. A deputation that waited upon tho Acting-Prime Minister (the Hon. J. Allen) at Dunedin last -week urged that the Government should commandeer all hides in the Dominion, paying for them at tho 1915 rates, &nd supply them to tanners and tho export trade as required. This arrangement, the deputation urged, would prevent the inflation of prices, and would 6av© the tanning industry, which was being endan-gered-by the high prices of.ra-w materials. The representative of the tanners told the Minister that the quantity of hides kept back in tho Dominion -was not sufficient even for the military work, and that the prices wero "intolerable."

Tho shortage of leather, particularly of the higher grades, is being felt in Wellington, and manufacturers .stato that if present prices aro maintained another big advance in tho cost of boots to the general public is inevitable (says Saturday's "Dominion"). Tho export of sole-leather from. United Kingdom has been prohibited, and the New Zealand bqot factories are dependent upon American supplies and the product of tho Dominion tanneries. Tho American sole-leather costs, over 2s per pound more than it did prior to tho ontbe&k of -war, supplies are not easily obtainable, and the prices tend to rise still further. Tho local tanneries are handicapped by heavy increases in tho prices of tanning materials and by a shortago of hides, due to tiio attractive export prices A retailer told a reporter on Friday that tho increases made in tho retail prices of boots and shoes, since August, 1014, amounted already to as much as 50 per cent, on somo lines. Ipfej-ior leathers appeared to havo advanced moro, proportionately than the better qualities, and so tho cheapcr footwear showed relatively the biggest advances. Ho had.to. chargo 12s 6d for a shoo that ho had' sold at 8s 6d before the war. Children's boots of a .kind used widely had advanced from os to 9s 6d. A superior boot that bad been retailed at 26s before the war now cost 3os. The retailer added that he -understood the manufacturers contemplated advancing wholesale prices, owing to rises in their own costs, and in that case the public -would have to pay more again.