FROM A YORKSHIRE WINDOW

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26352, 6 January 1947, Page 3

FROM A YORKSHIRE WINDOW

The prosperity of the West Riding of Yorkshire in England rests largely upon the wool textile trade. This industry has now more or less completed its immediate post-war task of providing cloth for the demobilisation suits of tne millions of young men leaving the armed forces; another very important task was the provision of cloth for the use of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration —it was sent into all the previously enemy-occupied countries of Europe from north to south: Norway. France, Belgium, Denmark, Holland Czechoslovakia and Greece. The industry is now settling down to facing its peace-time problems of supplying the home market and of resuming its pre-war role in Britain’s export trade. The post-war wool textile trade in Yorkshire, like all other post-war industries in Britain, has first to think of its labour supply. Before the war about a-quarter of a million operatives were employed. During the war 40 per cent, of these were lost to the industry. Now the survivors are flowing back, .but the flow is not yet rapid enough to satisfy the terrific demand for woollen textiles. Advertisements stating advantageous conditions of work and" wages are to be seen on hoardings all over the West Riding—a very welcome change from the * no vacancy” notices during the pre-war slump. Post-war British industry realises that the industry whose conditions best deserve the labour will get the labour, and this serves to stimulate employers’ interest in social welfare schemes, though on the whole in present-day Britain such stimulus is not needed. The painting of looms in various bright colours— turquoise blue, for example, with red wheels —by some enterprising firms would perhaps horrify the Victorian stalwarts who founded the firms, but it certainly enlivens the weaving shed. The textile technical schools are full, and the Recruitment Board of the industry recently made for teaching purposes has produced an admirable little colourfilm called “ Once Upon a Sheep," explaining the various textile processes from sheep's fleece to finished cloth. Skill Unimpaired If you ask a West Riding manufacturer about labour he wears a considering air, but if you ask him about the post-war quality of his product he gives a confident grin. Six years on precision engineering work have certainly not impaired the skill of the returning women operatives, the weavers of the industry, and in some cases have improved it, while the girls who have been abroad on service during World War II have returned with an added sense of pride in British craftsmanship. . , . The great importance of design in, textiles is fully realised, the designer’s being one 1 of the best posts in the industry. The National Council for Industrial Design, Iwhich under the chairmanship of Sir Thomas Barlow, has been responsible , for the immensely successful “Britain Can Make It” exhibition, is eager that each British industry should establish a “ design and style centre.” The cotton industry has already done so and the wool textile group has a project in hand.

The West Riding Textiles

Special to the Daily Times by Phyllis Bentley

In regard to design for cloths for men’s wear, the West Riding believes itself supreme, and in the case of women’s cloths, interesting developments have taken place during the war. A body called the Incorporated Society of London Fashion Designers has been formed. One of the important functions of this, group is to widen the contacts between the people who make cloth and the people who make clothes but of cloth. A show of dresses from this society’s designs was held in Yorkshire recently to which hundreds of manufacturers brought their designers and weavers, so that they might see what the product of their hands and brains looked like when ready to be worn. All production in the textile trade, whether for home or export, is still fully Government - controlled. “Utility ” cloth for home use still continues; it is illegal to export it. But “Utility” as a term rather defines a price level than a fabric. To secure, for the home market a quantity of serviceable cloth at a price within everyone’s reach, the war-time British Government exempted certain low and medium-priced cloths from purchase tax, allocated raw wool for their manufacture, controlled their price and insisted that these cloths should form a certain percentage of the manufacturers’ product. The present Government has continued this scheme. The Export Trade What of the export trade? Last year when Sir Stafford Cripps, President of Britain’s Board of Trade, came to Yorkshire to address the wool textile trade on the formation of its Working Party, he urged upon the crowded audience of some 3000 textile employers the vital necessity of manufacturing for export. When, from below the balcony where I was sitting, a very Yorkshire voice shouted suddenly, ‘ Tell us summat we don’t know! ” Sir Stafford joined in the laughter which greeted this sally. For in truth the West Riding has been exporting textiles for many hundreds of years. The vexation of Yorkshire manufacturers of the seventeenth century because, the ships bearing their cloth' from Hull to Amsterdam were delayed by the weather and the angry complaint of manufacturers of the eighteenth century because the wagons of local carriers taking their cloth to port were delayed on the road, and missed the ship, echo loudly down the centuries in their letters. In the same downright Yorkshire tongue are the remarks of the modern manufacturer who cannot get his new machinery, his yarns and his returning labour, together fast enough to please him. In some figures I saw recently of comparative wool textile exports for the first nine, months of 1938 and 1946, however, T was glad to see that the various members of the Commonwealth were receiving in most cases more than 100 per cent, of their prewar purchases. I was giad for those receiving the. cloth, I was glad for war purchases. I was glad for those us in Britain; for to us in Britain today high export figures mean, quite simply, life itself.