OUR YORKSHIRE LETTER.

Otago Witness, Issue 4048, 13 October 1931, Page 17

OUR YORKSHIRE LETTER.

IIOAV TARIFFS AFFECT YORKSHIRE AIANI ’ FACTUR ERS. FAIRLY HEALTHY OUTLOOK FOR THE RAW Al ATER I AL. (From Our Special Corresponbent.) BRADFORD. August 6. It is impossible to say a great deal this week which is of direct interest to pastoral readers, though on the whole the outlook for wool as seen from the Braudford standpoint is fairly good. During this week and next many mills in the West Riding are closed for the annua! holiday, some having been closed all last week. There is thus a temporary interference with consumption, but if spinne's and manufacturers find a substantial improvement in demand they will lie aide to cope with it quite easily. Formerly three days was the utmost length of time the mills were closed. Nowadays many of them are closed 10 to 14 days, and occasionally one hears of a mill standing for three weeks. Some allowance must be made for machinery developments, and perhaps the adaptation of employees to the machinery age. Technical training and inr-reased efficiency must account for something, but even when all this has been allowed for this standing of machinery for long periods, in addition to longer breaks at other dates, suggests that the industry is losing a great deal in consequence of the high duties in other countlies. August has been known to be a very busy month, big orders being placed for spring fabrics, but things have been so upset that there lias been little interest in buying on forward account. The majority of wholesale fabric- buyers have felt that it would be policy to defer placing orders until they see what happened on the Continent. The 2 per cent, increase in the bank rate in a fortnight is not altogether a good omen. It may be more a reflection of what lias happened in the past than what is going to take place in the near futu’e. but the average business man is not likely to commit himself extensively just now. Alost manufacturers are satisfied with the new cloths which wholesale houses have selected for the spring of 1932. From what has been seen the bulk of the buying will be on similar lines to last season. The recent exhibition of cloths by leading Bradford and Huddersfield mauufac-turers showed the tendency of styles. There is no outstanding change in men's wear, but the leading effects in ladies’ dress goods remains to be seen.

THE TARIFF QUESTION AGAIN. Last week the Bradford Chamber of Commerce considered the imposition of high import duties by almost every country to which West Riding manufactured goods are sent. A list has been compiled of the tariffs now operative in 33 colonial and foreign countries. This is given herewith, for it deserves careful examination by everyone interested in international commercial relationships and the state of the wool industry throughout the world. Commenting on the menace by which it is believed spinners and manufacturers in this district are faced, Air J. 11. C. Hodgson, president of the chamber, has stated that when a tariff was raised or was too high already the industry should prepare a case. The Board of Trade and the Foreign Office should also be asked for assistance, and the case should be presented by a representative of the wool textile industry to the foreign Government concerned. The average of the duties imposed by the 33 countries mentioned on an all-wool cloth weighing 16oz to the yard and costing 4s 6d is 2s 6d per yard. It is quite a recognised thing for such cloth to be sold at the very smallest margin of profit possible. In only too many cases margins have been sacrificed altogether in an attempt to keep connections together, and -in the hope that a change in conditions would enable more profitable business to be done in the future. Business has been done on a margin of Id per yard and even less, and it is plain to be seen that a duty of 2s 6d on a 4s 6d cloth is absolutely prohibitive. The duties reproduced here wore calculated to include surtaxes and consular and other charges so far as these are fixed and ascertainable :

WHO PAYS ? It is perfectly clear that it does not matter whether the importer or the Bradford exporter pays the duty so far as volume of trade is affected. Considering that very little cloth indeed has been saleable during the past two years on which a profit of more than 2 per cent, was possible, it is also evident that some of the smallest duties in the above list are difficult to surmount, while the largest limit the business to luxury consumers. There are seven countries whose tariffs more than double the price of the fabric, and Alexico's duty nearly trebles it. The Australian tariff is so high (over 1(H) per c-ciit.) that any preference in tavour of England that it might contain seems based on the principle of “ keep out all the English fabrics, but keep out others twice. "

Amongst our own overseas kinsmen South Alric-a seems to treat us best and Australia worst. India is not so severe against us as New Zealand, but does not offer much of a market for British superior goods. Canada hits us next hardest after Australia, ami during this last month her textile press has been complaining that British manufacturers are quoting less than cost for fabrics, and that therefore the anti-dumping laws should be put into force against them. Apparently the Canadian complainants overlook the fact that to-da.v our mills can sell scarcely any cloth at all either in Canada or any other country at full cost price worked out- from the clean wool basis upwards. FEATURES OF THE SCHEDULE. There is an interesting feature about almost every one of the tariffs in the above list. In a low-wage country like Japan the tariff of approximately 30 per cent., while not so high as Canada’s, Germany's. or Italy's, effectively keeps out most English fabrics because of the relatively low production cost in Japan itself. The high figure of 112 per cent, in Roland, which is not by any means a country paying a high level of wages, seems to point to very powerful trade influences on the framers of Polish budgets and also possibly indicates a certain amount of incompetence on the part of Polish mills. The American figure of 94 per cent, does not prevent t)ie importation of considerable weights of British woollens and worsteds, but here again the ultimate user belongs to the rich or upper middle class section of the community.

The wool textile imports to this countryhave been fairly well maintained over the last two or three years. The Bradford producer is" fully aware that the imposition of a heavy tariff against these imports, while it might increase competition from them in neutral countries where both our cloths and they are fighting for a market, would at least secure a part of our own home market for mills now running at much less than normal capacity. But the action many Bradford manufacturers want to see on the part of our Government is a general imposition of tariff's on all manner of goods, not so much to keep them out or to provide revenue, as to act as a bargaining lever. When Brazil proposed an increased tariff on cloth France replied with a threat to increase the tariff on Brazilian coffee, with a result that the Brazilian proposal that would affect French cloth was dropped.

Country. Duty. Country. Duty. s. 11. s. d. South Africa . 0 9 3 Uruguay . . 1 8J Holland . 0 41 Italy . . . . 1 84 Belgium . 0 61 Finland . 1 9.J Denmark . . . 0 7 v - A rgentina. 0 British India . 0 s' Canada . . p OJ Switzerland 0 Si Turkey . . 9 0J Egypt .... 0 9 Ecuador o Irish Free State 0 11 Greece . . o 24 New Zealand 1 2 1 - United States 4 Sweden 1 li Peru . . . . 4 01 Norway . 1 2 Chile . . . . 4 Si France . . . . 1 9 X Australia . o 0 Czechoslovakia 1 4* Poland . . — 04 Japan . . . . 1 41 Brazil . . 4i Austria . . 1 6 .1 Spain . . . ’. 6 China . . . . 1 Y Mexico . . 12 6 Germany . 1 s;