HIGHER PRICE FOR COTTON GOODS

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 21992, 16 January 1937, Page 18

HIGHER PRICE FOR COTTON GOODS

ENGLISH BUSINESS MAN'S VIEW An increase in the price of cotton and artificial silk goods was predicted last evening by Mr H. Tate, a representative of an English firm. He told a reporter that the industry was booming at present. Wages in the spinning trade had gone up in England by from 7J to 10 per cent., and increases in the costs of dyeing and weaving would take place early this year. The price of Egyptian yarns had also gone up. Mr Tate attributed the rise in prices to the present expenditure on armaments, which released more money for the basic industries, and he anticipated that it would last about two years. The big question for the industry, he said, was still the competition from Japan. He had spoken to merchants in Australia and Wellington, and'had found that all of them did not wish to buy Japanese goods, but were forced to do so because of the price. Wages in New Zealand, he said, seemed to be about two-thirds as high again as in England. In some cases a man's wage in England was only 45s a week, scarcely a living wage.' These wages, however, were among those which were being increased.