AMERICAN PRICE SLUMP.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 15223, 22 May 1920, Page 7

AMERICAN PRICE SLUMP.

OVER-SPECULATION THE CAUSE. (Special to the Herald.) WELLINGTON, this day. Opinions collected here, from leading traders and a lady recently, returned from America, suggest., that the* price slump m clothing throughout the States is the result of a panic, due .to overspeculation. As an instance of speculative buying m the United States drapery trades, a lady who was interviewed, stated that goods usually availably for trade m November and December were all absorbed by speculators m October last. When bonalide traders went to buy they found almost everything . they wanted taken by speculators, from whom, .they would have to buy, of course, at a premium.- It was undiluted gambling, not fair trading. Supply and demand were a factor that could not be ignored, but manipulation of tji e markets by speculators had a great 'influence on the prices of goods. It seemed anomalous, •but it was true, that manufacturers were sometimes only too eager to buy back their own goods from the speculators at a high premium. • They had had to buy goods made- i 1 America and shipped to London to meet American demands. Mr. S. Xi: kcaldie, principal of one of the leading ( rapery and clothing establishments, < orroborated this statement, declaring that goods often I passed through the hai ds of half-a-dozen speculators who neve • saw .them and intruded their operations upon the legitimate circle of the manufacturers 1 selling agent, jobber (or warehouseman), to the retailer. The textile and clothing trades have their speculators. It is evident from cable mwsages that they are frantic to selL They have been caught. It does not follow at all that there has been a genuine fall m prices, lor that the present-; collapse of specula- ' torß heralds a general "On the contrary, everything: is against it," I adds Mr. Kirkcaldie. "We are advised from Manchester that raw cotton., which on March 7 was 16d per Ib, advanced f on March 16 to 29Jd per lb. Scottish woollen manufacturers intimate that they ' are already so booked up with orders that they cannot look at new business for 1921. Advices from Nottingham I hosiery manufacturers are to the same j effect. The whole world is short of clothing, and until that shortage is relieved there will be no moderation m prices. They may go higher. The British domestic demand itself is enormous — at present insatiable. There is. great" and insistent demand from the Continent, and during the ; past few months from the United States also."