GERMAN WOOL TRADE

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22370, 6 April 1938, Page 13

GERMAN WOOL TRADE

ACTIVE INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION

German textile employment in recent months shows no pronounced alteration, according to recent reports. Industrial production is active, and has been considerably helped by more liberal distribution of the raw material through official channels. The mill output has been considerably increased. . Depression, observable in the foreign wool and textile trade, has not been felt to the same extent in the Reich, although the seasonable quietness usual in the first quarter of the year was not missing in some sections of cloth manufacture. Short-term orders in general have increased, for which the price decline in raw wool is largely answerable, and spinners and weavers able to deliver in reasonable time have' had ' good business.

The Berlin Chamber of Commerce in its review states that the gradual increase of production in the clothing industry since 1933 amounts up to 15 per cent, per annum in value, but is somewhat less in quantity. The wage rates show Increases for several groups, particularly in that of the home workers, much having been done to introduce mpdern social, medical, and insurance reform, including payment in full for holiday recess. In ladles’ dress goods, turnover for spring requirements during the early weeks of the present year was occas-

ionally somewhat quieter, but was still acceptable. However, in the piecegoods section returns for January arc stated to be better than those for the same period of 1937. Military cloth demands shows no marked decrease, and inquiry for belter-class wearing apparel of all kinds has in many cases even exceeded the quantity available. An active autumn and winter turnover of the Berlin textile wholesale trade resulted in stocks being materially reduced, and financial liquidity showing material improvement. A PROTEST FROM SCOTLAND PRICES FOR LAMB tnou on own co*M«rojn>*jrr.) LONDON. March 19. Protests are being made in Scotland against the depression in mutton andlamb prices, which, it is claimed, has been accentuated by increased imports .from Australia and New Zealand. It is stated that fat sheep bought last autumn are now being sold at a loss of £ 1 a head, and not more than 20 per cent, are realising the original cost. Deputations of Scottish farming organisations have interviewed the Secretary of State for Scotland seeking a remedy. “The cause of the depression is the large excess of imports from Australia and-New Zealand, amounting to an equivalent of fully 1,300,000 head for the year 1937," says the “Scotsman,’’ “At the same time the increase in home production was 534,000, and, even allowing that only half of that increase was marketable, it gives a total excess of supply of fully 1,500,000 sheep and lambs as compared with 1936. “It appears that the higher prices for mutton and lamb ruling in the first half of 1937 induced those in charge of the regulation of imports to grant a considerably increased export from Australia and New Zealand, in the belief that the better state of the home market would permit the absorption of that increase without any severe price depression. The trouble appears to be that the actual price depression occurred about the same time as the increased imports reached the market. “It is obvious that the system of regulation does not operate sufficiently quickly to prevent market fluctuations, and It is felt that a more frequent and regular system should be adopted in order to secure market stability.”