BRITISH TRADE.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18369, 30 April 1925, Page 13

BRITISH TRADE.

■ • CAUSES OF STAGNATION. CHEAPER FOREIGN PRODUCTION (»T CABL* -PRESS XSBOCTATIC\K--COrrRIGBT.) (AUSTRALIiK AXD X.Z. CABLE .ASSOCIATION.)

SYDNEY, April 29. Mr Albert Spencer, president of the Auckland Provincial Employers' Association, has arrived in Sydney en route for New Zealand, after a world iour.

Trade in England, he says, is heing strangled by foreign competition, aVded by the Government dole. Important A nd old-established industries are failing:, and foreign countries, with low -wafts and freedom from strikes, arc capturing" the world's trade. Tho competition from which British manufacturers ar<t suffering is so fierce that they have' found themselves engaged in a hopeless fight. Onco the Staffordshire potteries were able to compete against all foreign manufacturers, but to-day these famous works are languishing because of the invasion of the British market by Czechoslovakia, whose manufacturers are landing cups and saucers in Great Britain and retailing them at 4s 9d a dozen, while the lowest price at which British manufacturers could sell them was 8s a dozen wholesale. Other industries wore in a similar position. Since tho settlement of the Ruhr difficulty, Germany and France had been underselling t'ho British coal-mine owner by five shillings a ton. The result was that thcro were 100,000 miners unemployed in the United Kingdom.

Holland had captured tho market for electrical goods.

When industrial troubles arose over reductions in wago3 and longer hours, the employers shut down their works. The workmen accepted half a loaf as better than no bread. The conditions in England had reached such a desperato stage that British manufacturers were being compelled to establish works and factories in other European countries.

An English company in Spain landed slates in England at £l2 10s a 1000, whereas some Home manufacturers had to sell at £l7 ss.

Keferring to the wool trade, Mr Spencer expressed tho opinion that the enormous prices wool was fetching could not be maintained.

A new fabric was being manufactured in England, Spain, and Italy, one of the constituents of which was wood-pulp, other essential elements being wool and cotton. The volume of the manufacture of this new fabric was increasing rapidly, and tho effect of the substitution of cotton and wood-pulp in material must in time operate against the prevailing high prico of wool. Manufacturing industries generally in Italy were in a nourishing condition, owing to their ability to undersell Great Britain, and successfully compete with other countries.

It seemed that the British worker on tho dole system had lost the art of working.