COST OF GIRLS' HOSE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 11, 13 July 1939, Page 10

COST OF GIRLS' HOSE

REPLY TO AN IMPORTER

"EXTRAVAGANT STATEMENT"

An emphatic protest against the publication of what he described as extavagant, unsupported, and anonymous statements in regard to the cost and quality of girls' hose manufactured in New Zealand was made by the secretary of the Wellington Manufacturers' Association, Mr. A. W. Nisbet, today, in commenting upon an article appearing under the heading "Buy New Zea-land-made" in Tuesday's "Evening

Post."

"The statement," said Mr. Nisbet, "was of the alleged difficulties of an importer in placing a contract in New Zealand for girls' hose. The landed price of English hose, including 80 per cent, in duty and exchange, was stated by this anonymous importer at 43s a dozen, and the alleged price of the New Zealand article was stated at 70s 6d, plus 3s 6d sales tax.

"New Zealand manufacturers do not mind fair criticism," continued Mr. Nisbet, "but we do object to the use by importing interests, in an endeavour to bolster up their own case, of halftruths, unsupported figures, and exploded myths. Contact was made by telegram and long-distance telephone with every mill in New Zealand known to cater for this class of goods, and the reply from every mill from Auckland to the Bluff has been that no recent requotation for girls' hose has either been asked for or given. Manufacturers and importers alike with whom I discussed the article described this importer's quotation of 70s 6d for this class of goods as fantastic. It is typical of the methods used by those to whose interest it is to stifle the manufacture of goods in New Zealand that girls' hose should be chosen as an illustration of what the public will have to pay as a result of import restrictions.

"As I have no positive knowledge as to the particular type of girls' stockings to which the importer refers, I can only assume from the figure quoted that the hose referred to are cashmere, "gym," or school hose, a line which probably represents only one or two per cent, of the women's hose used in New Zealand. Actually, the manufacture of cashmere hose is a dying industry,. and in the United Kingdom is almost exclusively what is termed as 'backyard' industry.

COMPETITION WITH IMPORTED LINES.

"The ability of the New Zealand manufacturer to succeed in the ordinary commercial lines of silk and artificial silk hose is well illustrated by the fact that, prior to the introduction of import restrictions, two large factories in Wellington have been able to compete successfully with the imported article as to both price and quality, with the protection of only very moderate duty against hose produced in the United Kingdom.

"One gets a little tired," said Mr. Nisbet, "of the weary reiteration of the parrot cry that because an article is made in New Zealand by New Zealand workmen it must be of a lower quality of workmanship than a similar article made, say, in Manchester by English workers. New Zealand factories have, in the main, plant as up to date as any in the world, the technical experts' in most factories are working in close contact with their confreres overseas, and in many cases identical, and in a number of cases superior, grades of raw materials are used in New Zealand factories. ■

"If the executives of the large hosiery knitwear and underwear manufacturing companies in London are as smallminded as their letter indicates, and have removed the posters asking their workpeople to buy New Zealand-made goods,, there is not much that we in New Zealand can do about it, except to feel a little sorry for their mentality. It would, of course, be interesting to know the reaction of the executives and , workers in the English art. silk yarn factories to the enormously increased | demand for English yarn for use in New Zealand hosiery factories, an increased demand primarily due to the restriction on the importation of finished foreign hosiery.