PROTECTION FOR COTTON MILLS

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27987, 6 June 1956, Page 8

PROTECTION FOR COTTON MILLS

PUBLICITY STUNTS IN BRITAIN

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright! (Rec. 10 p.m.) LONDON, June 5. Twelve hundred slim, sharp, bayonet-length pieces of well-worn steel arrived this morning by post at the homes of British peers. M.P.’s, trades union leaders, newspaper editors, cartoonists and political writers.

This “smartest publicity exploit of the year,” as the “Daily Mail” termed it, was the latest step in a campaign by Lancashire textile firms to get protection for their industry against the competition of cheap Japanese cotton cloth. The pieces of steel were cotton spindles from Lancashire mill looms said to be put out of use by the shrinkage of orders for British cloth. Last week hundreds of pieces of Japanese cloth, on which were printed a cartoon depicting a Japanese grinning about the dumping of this material in Britain, were also sent to politicians and publicists. Originator of the stunts is an American publicity man, who said that the cost of both “gimmicks” had been £2BO. “The spindles,” he said, “were dirt cheap—because nobody wants them.”