CHEAP TROUSERS

Northern Advocate, 22 August 1929, Page 9

CHEAP TROUSERS

' SUBSTITUTE FOR WOOLLENS. OUTSPOKEN CRITICISM. (Special to “Northern. Advocate.") WELLINGTON, This Day. Each year iu his annual address to shareholders of the Wellington Woollen Manufacturing Company, the chairman of directors, Mr W. H. P. Barber, draws attention to the position in regard to the importation of manufactured textiles into this country. At Tuesday's meeting Mr Barber was particularly outspoken. He said:— “There is one thing clear to us, and should bo to the grower and to Parliament, that a check on manufactured' Substitutes coming into the country should be established. It is not on behalf of ourselves that I say this, as we can, if pushed to it, use substitutes as an adjunct to wool and should no doubt find an easy market if we did,, as low price in these extravagant days of quick change is a first consideration. “Trousers are being landed here which cost 3s without duty," said Mr Barber. “What does 25 per cent, on that do as stopping the importation of .substitutes for woollen goods'made here ?

“The shibboleth of absolute' free trade is kept prominent by great importing houses and shipping magnates the whole world over, but it is strange that such, a policy is accepted by some as an ideal state when we have- the example of . Great Britain to the con-: trary. The 400 years of continuous protection made her a great Empire. The less than 100 years of freetrade has endangered that position. The brief period of safeguarding showed what could be done by judicious protection against cheap foreign labour, but oven that help granted to British ■workers and to the Empire is to be discontinued by the new Government.

“Already the altered policy has resulted in a 10 per cent, reduction, in the wages of heavy woollen workers, aiid which has been accepted by them. The disastrous strike in the cotton trade is another result. It is lamentable that m England a wage reduction should take precedence in importance over the application of an equivalent amount as a cheek on goods made abroad under different standards of living.

‘ ‘ The best of all markets is the home one, and land in New Zealand cannot bo as successfully developed as it should unless profitable markets are close to settlers," continued Mr Barber. “The encouragement of manufacturing with resultant work for a large population will give an ever-in-creasing market for the producer. It is a fact that wool sold for use in-New Zealand mills returns the grower a better price than when bought for shipment."