STOCKING PRICES

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 September 1946, Page 10

STOCKING PRICES

CONSIDERABLE INCREASE expected LONDON, September 19. “Nylon yarn supplies will be so limited that hosiery manufacturers plan to use rayon for finer gauge stockings for the next two or thiee years.” says a Board of Trade working party report. “Plants 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 in nylon becomes most popular. “The domestic demand for stockings five years hence is 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 oi 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 the establishment of a re - search 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.