JAPANESE GOODS

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 14, 9 May 1933, Page 9

JAPANESE GOODS

"MENACE IS VERY REAL"

DRAPERY TRADE ASTIR

. The New Zealand Drapers', Clothiers', and Boot Betailers'-Federation Journal is most apprehensive of Japanese competition with British goods in.; the New Zealand market. "Not only is New Zealand threatened with a flood : of cheap Eastern cotton and art silk products," states the trade organ,"but/, also woollen, mixture, and imitationwoollen products are being dumped here, and the sale of better-class products is being prejudiced by these goods being.displayed in chain stores at cut. prices. Footwear is also threatened by the latest Japanese product, in, which a rubber composition £ov soles,: heels, and uppers is used in imitation of ordinary brown and' black leather,., Those rubber shoos when new are difficult to tell from brown or black calf, and they are sold in England as low as 3s 6d a pair." ■ . ' ' Attention is drawn to the slight prospect of reciprocal trade with Eastern countries, and it is stated that beyond a minor market, for raw wool but little of our produce can find, a market there in return for cheap-labour goods. "The only open and worth-, while market for 90 per , cent, of the export trade on which our country depends for its natural income is the Mother Country. Under the- Ottawa Agreement we now have our only sheltered market, where our products are given ■ preference over foreign goods, but we cannot expect Britain to buy our exports a; profitable. prices while her workers are being thrown idle, or their living standards worsened by unfair competition with thq lowest-paid labour in the world. "The menace is very real and very alarming," states the journal, and! adds: "With England and the other overseas Dominions taking action to cope with this danger, New Zealand cannot afford to remain an open dumping ground for the class of goods we have described, and we look for combined action by our federation in unity with the representatives of British manufacturers, and tho New Zealaud Manufacturers' Federation, to impress on the new tariff tribunal about to be set up the ne&cssity for effective action in meeting this peril."