WOOL TRADE PROBLEMS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16914, 1 April 1929, Page 8

WOOL TRADE PROBLEMS

FOREIGN COMPETITION IMPORTS OF DRESS GOODS LONDON, Feb. 19. Before (he Board of Trade Committee which is inquiring into the application, under the Safeguarding Regulations, for a duly on imported dress goods, Mr. Sidney K. lllingworth, director 08 Messrs. Thomas Priestley and Sons, manufacturers of dress goods, cloths and linens. Bradford, stated that since the previous application for a safeguarding duty in 1926. 14 Bradford firms had been compelled to close down. There was no important section of the wool and worsted industry to-day that (fid riot signify its support for the application of a duty. Foreign competition bad injuriously affected the trade and employment ill this country of both the woollen and worsted sections of the industry.

The clothes in respect of which safeguarding -was required were chiefly ladies' dress goods, made from single and two-fold yarns, and which took the place of similar cloth closely manufactured bv the worsted industry of Bradford. In recent years there had beet: increased Continental competition in the shape of foreign imports consisting of both light-weight woollens, which competed with light-weight, woollens of the same class as those made by the woollen industry of Yorkshire, and worsted fabrics of the same ('lass as those made by the British worsted industry. 25 PER; CENT. REDUCTION

More than 900.000 garments were imported in 1922 and nearly 600,000 in 1928. The total output of 12 representative I'iitisli firms had fallen from 13,942,511 square yards in 1924 to 10,080.000 square yards in 1928. Mr. N. L. Maeaskie (for the applicants): Does that represent the stale of the industry as a whole?--Yes. I should say that about 25 per cent, represents the decline in output of the indutsry. Mr. lllingworth handed in a list of 32 samples of imports with their foreign prices and the English costs of manufacturing similar articles. Mr Comyns fair objected that the statement, of foreign prices was not supported by invoices. Mr. Lllingworth: They will he produced in camera.

.Mr. Comyns Carr: Why should evidence of the purchase of foreign goods be heard in camera? I shall submit that unless proof of the foreign prices be given publicly; so that they can be tested, they should he excluded. Mr. lllingworth: If \/c are going to be asked to state publicly the foreign supplier and his price and English buyer and his price then we are going to be put sit a very serious disadvantage. It is perfectly clear that Mr. Carr has no business experience of this class oil trade or he would not raise objections. '•A PERFECT BOGEY"

Mr. lllingworth denied the claim of the opponents of the application that the British trade was unable to adapt itself to the demands of fashion. The suggestion that there was a special kind of cloth which might be made in one country and could not he made in anqther 'was a bogey. It was perfectly ridiculous to suggest that a foreign maker, whom nobody knew, could come to London and show a cloth which nobody had. ever heard of, or ever seen, before. There was a continuous interchange of patterns and ideas. From Yorkshire thousands' and thousands of patterns were sent to London. Tt was a business on the part of foreign manufacturers to go round "clipping" these patterns and in time British manufacturers might receive their own patterns, or something like them, from abroad. Then the competition began, and it became a. question of price. "When we are told we cannot make a particular kind of cloth," added Mr. lllingworth, "I say as strongly as I can the whole thing is a perfect bogey. We, as an industry, have always led in making these types of cloth, producing them and, perhaps, going to more expense than anybody else in endeavoring to produce something new. J, myself, have had ray own patterns sent back as something new from abroad a. year after I had sent them out"

MACHINERY EXPORTED The French had a big market in this country, he continued, sending hundreds of thousands of pieces of cloth here, hut not one single French manufacturer had ever come here and set up a plant. Why! "They tell us frankly," he proceeded, "that it is not a question of machinery or of the operatives, but if they brought a. plant to this country with the conditions that we have to' work under, and the wages we have to pay, they would he wiped out." Any suggestion that British machinery was'inferior to foreign machinery was disproved by lb a fact that machines made in Yorkshire were exported all over the world. It was claimed, ho believed, by the opposition to the application, that the majority of foreign cloth was single warp which could not be made in this country. That was not true. "Our machinery is good machinery," Mr. lllingworth added. "The foreigner has nothing different from, us in that direction."

He agreed that dyeing costs in this country were high, but said that no one in the world could show more efficiency than British dyers, especially those in the wool section. Thousands of foreign pieces of cloth came to this country to be dyed because British dyes and finishes were better than could he had elsewhere.

Mr. lllingworth stated that while exports of tissues or fabrics of between two ounces to 11 ounces per square yard in weight (the.quality specified in the application) had declined, imports in this class of material had steadily increased. Imports in 1924 were 20,000,000 square yards; in 1925, 2o\C00.000; in 1926, 29,C00,CC0: in 1927, 30,000,000; and in 1928, 53,000,000, irrespective of materials contained in "made up" imports. Mr. Comyns Orr (for the opposition): It is your case, I understand, that the only things which enable the French and Germans to meet you in competition are depreciation of ' currency and low wages'-—Yes, and hours and conditions of labor.