FUTURE HOSIERY SUPPLIES

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24985, 20 September 1946, Page 7

FUTURE HOSIERY SUPPLIES

MUCH HIGHER EXPECTED RAYON FOR FINER GAUGE STOCKINGS 8 « P-m ) LONDON, Sept. 19. Nylon ,y® rn , supplies will be so limited that hosiery manufacturers plan to use rayon for finer gauge stockings for the next two or three years,” says a Board of Trade working party report. “Plante at present producing nylon are unlikely to be producing fully before 1947, and the plants now being built will not be producing until the middle of 1948 at the earliest. There will be still a long-term need for rayon, even if nylon becomes most popular. "The domestic demand for stockings hence “ estimated at 34,000,000 dozen pairs annually, but there is small hope that supplies of better quality stockings will increase in the near future, and prices will be considerably higher than before the war. Increased production of supplies is regarded as of urgent national interest.”

The report recommends Government action ensuring the stability of yarn prices, the restriction of subsidised or dumped imports, Government control of yarn allocation during the shortage period, the establishment of a marketing company for bulk production and for sale overseas, the establishment of an organisation for market research and publicity, and .he establishment of a research organisation. Because of a “seemingly fantastic but actually cold fact,” textile manufacturing is no longer the simple interlocking of natural fibres, but the manipulation of atoms and molecules.