BRITISH WOOLLEN TRADE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19614, 19 October 1925, Page 7

BRITISH WOOLLEN TRADE

APPLICATION FOR IMPORT DUTIES. POSSIBILITY’ OF PROTECTION. Press Association— By Telegraph—Copyrienv LONDON, October 16. The Yorkshire papers regard the application of the Safeguarding Industries Committee for the imposition of worsted import duties as epoch-making, as it may lead to Protection, for the first time in the history of modem wool manufacture.

The Yorkshire Post says: “In the past, when a few foreign competitors were unable to compete with us in quality and price, Bradford was right in supporting Free trade, which was keeping down the cost of living and led to cheap production ; but present conditions, due to the war, have completely reversed the position. We are so handicapped that we cannot compete with the other nations’ prices in the home market; therefore it has assumed new importance. With the proposed duties it is reasonable and safe to say that we could plan mass production and big organisation. France is now our chief competitor. She sent 17,000,000 yards of wool cloth to Britain during the nine months in 1925, compared with 7,000,000 in the same period in 1922.” The Yorkshire Observer asks: “How far is the Protection epidemic going? Everybody is after duties and subsidies, though it is ourselves we are plundering. We wonder whether those embarking on this perilous adventure imagine that both the Home and foreign trade can be improved by all feeding on one another’s tails.” The Manchester Guardian in an editorial, quoting Sir George Paish's warning in Manchester that Britain is moving towards complete Protection, and enumerating the recently-appointed committee under the Safeguarding Act, says that it would have thought this sufficiently rapid progress for a Government pledged not to introduce Protection by the side door. It is now reported, says the Guardian, that pressure is being brought to bear on the Government to speed up the Safeguarding Act. Sir George Paish’s prediction is not as fantastic as it may seem to Lancashire voters, who believed in the Conservatives’ assurrances that Protection was not the issue at the election. It cannot help being the ’ issue, because it is the only remedy for the present ills in which the Conservatives believe.—A. and N.Z. Cable.